


Of Blood and Flesh

by x_cracking



Category: The Boys (TV 2019)
Genre: AU: during season 1, Alternate Universe - Original, Drama & Romance, Eventual Romance, Eventual Sex, F/M, Gore, Graphic Depictions of Illness, Major Original Character(s), Original Character-centric, Romance, Science Fiction, Season/Series 01, Slow Build, Slow Burn, Thriller, alternative universe
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-05
Updated: 2021-01-05
Packaged: 2021-02-27 05:13:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 15
Words: 76,617
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22121623
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/x_cracking/pseuds/x_cracking
Summary: Vought has a secret weapon that has been kept locked away and hidden for years. Despite multiple attempts to monopolise on the secret, it is ultimately too dangerous and unpredictable to put to use.When an unknown informant leaks crucial information to Susan Raynor, the weapon is finally intercepted by the Boys. However they find themselves with a much bigger problem on their hands than Compound V.
Relationships: Billy Butcher/Original Character(s), Billy Butcher/Original Female Character(s)
Comments: 144
Kudos: 313





	1. And it's Contagious

**Author's Note:**

> This story takes place following the discovery and cover up of Compound V by the Pentagon. The story assumes that Madelyn Stillwell is still alive, and both Billy and Homelander haven't made the discovery about Becca Butcher. Not Canon/ slightly AU.

**Chapter 1.**

**And it's Contagious**

_We're living in a den of thieves  
Rummaging for answers in the pages  
We're living in a den of thieves  
And it's contagious_

* * *

_The child is the colour of snow, splattered with dark globules of blood that stand out starkly against the whiteness of her skin. She trembles as she reaches down and smears the sticky liquid onto the clean sheet she is sitting on. It leaves a scarlet stain._

_“Are you sure this is safe?” A concerned voice cuts through the low sound of the child’s staggered breathing. The child glances up at the figures standing in front of her, her wide blue eyes trying to find someone to comfort her, something to remind her of home. She recognises a smile in one of the anonymous people before her, as the skin bunches at the corners of their eyes, but their cotton blue face masks leave the gesture devoid of teeth._

_“I don’t think she’s contagious, no one whose had contact with her since has gotten sick.” The figure reaches out one hand, clad in latex up to their elbow, and offers it to the child. She reaches out and grasps the smooth plastic, trying to feel the warmth beneath._

_“Honey, is this your blood?” She realises this is a man’s voice, and as he crouches to make himself level with her the stiff material of his white body suit crinkles loudly. She tries to peer into his eyes, but the thick pane of his Perspex goggles makes it difficult to meet them. “Have you been sick?”_

_The child looks down at herself, at the dark red liquid that cakes her summer dress. The blood that is matted into the stands of her hair make them swing heavily as she shakes her head. She parts her lips, to answer, to cry, but the fear in her throat suffocates any noise that might escape._

_“She’s in shock. The operatives who found her said there was so much blood at the scene they thought all three had their throats cut.” The standing figure makes this comment as if the child cannot hear, as if muteness is always accompanied by convenient deafness. “I just don’t like the fact we have two dead, we have no idea what this is and we’ve potentially got a biological timebomb sitting on your examination table.”_

_“You’re not a timebomb.” The man reassures the girl, before straightening up and turning to his partner “The child is a-pyretic – in fact she’s hypothermic. She hasn’t displayed any symptoms. We’ve had enhanced infection control protocol running since she came into our custody. And if she has managed to contract the virus -”_

_“Then god help us.” The second figure finishes the man’s sentence. He shakes his head, and the child glances down at her lap. The blood looks black under her fingernails._

_“No, then she’s not a timebomb.” The man corrects them, and the smile that was in his eye’s seeps into his voice “She’s a fucking gold mine.”_

* * *

Present day. 

The road is slick, the sheets of rain pouring down onto the asphalt ridding it of any and all friction that it once had to offer. “Couldn’t have picked a better day for it myself.” Comes the gruff voice of a heavily bearded man as he stops his van dead in the centre of the forest road.

“Billy, you sure about this?” Asks the man to his right, looking up through the blurred windscreen at the sky. is dark, clouds tumbling over each other as the rain rolls in. The forest appears to be deserted, the miles of road that stretch behind them had been empty, not another car, not a single traffic light, not even an odd squirrel darting from the treeline.

“As sure as I can be, all things considered.” Billy drapes his arms over the steering wheel and glances at his friend. Marvin is scowling, his jaw clenches as his mind runs through all the different eventualities. “Look, Raynor knows what she’s doing – whatever shit is coming through here today, it’s a big fucking deal. And if we get our hands on it then we’ve got a leg up on the supes. If she’s wrong and nothing shows up, then all we’ve done is wasted a lovely, sunny afternoon.”

“It doesn’t make any sense, Billy, and you know it.” Marvin growls, “Something isn’t adding up – they’re manufacturing this shit in the ass end of nowhere, making a single run of their entire stock, and for some reason your spook can’t shut the operation down themselves?”

Billy shrugs, reaching over to the door, trying to hide his own doubts that were scratching the underside of his mind. “And what do the spooks even want with Compound V anyway? It’s old news.” Marvin’s final question makes Billy laugh as he opens the door and steps into the downpour.

“Well, it ain’t Compound V we’re after.” Billy announces, before slamming the van door shut behind him.

He hears the sound of rubber skidding against wet cement and turns to see a car pull up behind the van. He strides forward as Marvin jumps from the passenger side, his boots splashing in the thick stream of water cascading over the road.

“You girls took your time.” Billy calls as a young man with tightly cropped hair and sprinkling of a goatee appears from the car, marching through the rain.

“Who drives like that in this weather?!” The man shouts, his arms spreading wide to emphasise the intensity of the downpour “Tu es un maniaque”

“Alright Frenchie, don’t get your panties in a bunch - we got here safe didn’t we?” Billy sighs with a roll of his eyes.

“What the fuck do you mean we’re not here for Compound V?” Marvin’s voice cuts through the rain like a blade, and Billy turns to look at him over his shoulder.

“Get the spike strip out of the van, we’re wasting time. They’ll be through here any minute.” Billy instructs, purposefully ignoring the question and moving towards the car. “You got the guns in the back there?” He asks Frenchie, who nods slowly, his face contorted with confusion.

“What does he mean?” A voice travels from the car as Billy moves to the back door. Hughie stands half out of the passenger seat, his hands gripping the roof of the car. Billy is unsure whether the scowl on his face is from fear, anger, or the rain lashing down into his eyes.

“I’ll tell you all about it once we get this set up, but we ain’t got time to gossip.” Billy growls, flinging the back door of the car open and reaching in for the heavy grey duffel bag perched in the backseat.

“If we’re not here for the Compound V, what are we here for?” Frenchie calls as Billy slings the bag over his shoulder.

“Compound R.” Billy spits the word out as if it holds meaning to anyone but himself.

“Compound… what?” Frenchie hisses at Billy as he stomps past him through the rain. The three men walk purposefully up the road, following Marvin who had already set off with spike strip slung over his shoulder. They need distance from their vans, they need enough room for carnage without losing their means of escape.

“Look, I just know what Raynor told me, and it wasn’t very fucking much.” Billy stops next to Marvin as he throws the band of metal across the width of the road, the spikes gleaning as they sit perpendicular to the concrete. Billy knows there is no surface traction, he knows that no matter how slow a car might travel down this road once they cross those spikes there would be no controlling it.

“It’s not like you to blindly follow orders.” Marvin hisses under his breath. Billy glances at him as he unzips the bag, pulling out a pump action shotgun and offering it to him.

“That’s not what’s happening here.” Billy states plainly as Marvin takes the gun from his grasp and Billy fishes for the next weapon to hand to Frenchie and Hughie, both standing behind him, desperate for the situation to be made clear. “What’s happened is…” He hauls out a large AR-15 and hands it to Frenchie, “Raynor got some inside intel that Vought were moving something big today. Something big and dangerous. Something no one is meant to know about.”

“Compound R.” Hughie breathes out, taking a smaller hand gun from Billy as he tucks his own into the waistband of his trousers. Billy nods curtly, his eyes travelling up the road ahead.

“That’s what the informant called it. Don’t know whether it’s just another strain of the V shit or something different, but they were pretty fucking clear it needed to be out of Vought’s hands.”

“By ‘no one’s meant to know’ you mean…” Marvin starts, raising his eyebrows. Billy shrugs as he removes his own AR-15 from the bag, tossing the duffle to the side of the road.

“Yeah, sorry.” Billy mumbles, “Sure, we work best on our own, right?”

“What do you mean sorry?” Hughie asks, his voice tight with worry.

“What the asshole means is,” Frenchie starts, grabbing Hughie by the arm and moving him to the opposite side of the road “we’re off the books. We have no back up. We’re still burned.”

“So, what you’re also saying is we haven’t a fucking clue what’s going to come down this road at us.” Marvin clarifies. The four men spilt in half, Hughie and Frenchie moving to one side of the spike strip and Billy and Marvin hunching down in the tree line at the other. Billy can feel the anger and tension being held in Marvin’s body as he gets down into the dirt.

“Look, we don’t. It could be a motorcade. It could be a fucking bicycle messenger for all I know.” Billy growls as he checks his gun is loaded and lines the sight up with his eye. “What I do know is if we don’t get our hands on whatever it is Vought is moving today, we’re royally fucked.”

* * *

None of them were sure how long they had been sitting in the dirt, between the tree’s, with the rain crashing down, soaking their clothes. It was long enough that Hughie was beginning to feel his body tense and tremble as his saturated t-shirt allowed the heat to seep from his body.

Eventually the faint rumble of an engine breaks through the patter of the rain, and Billy tightens his grip on the barrel of his rifle. He can hear his heart beating in his ears, and he wonders whether the feeling he has in the pit of his stomach is fear or excitement.

“Here we go, ladies.” He whispers.

A large van appears over the horizon and rushes down the road. It’s going the speed limit, but on a country road with no traction and precarious spikes hidden amongst sheets of rain that are quickly forming a river, it is going too fast. Billy holds his breath and his knuckles blanch, turning white.

The van is larger than Billy expected, but it is alone. It skids past them, and at that moment several quiet popping sounds are heard over the splatter of the rain. A hiss, another hiss, a screech, and the van is no longer going straight.

“Shit” Marvin spits out and springs out from where he is crouched next to Billy. The van swerves, and Billy can see the wheels fighting for grip on the asphalt. Billy smiles as the van careers sideways down the steep road. It skirts close to the tree line. It touches the tree line. Billy rises from the dirt and steps into the clear road in time to see the van slam into a tree, spin, another tree, the sound of breaks screeching against tires. There is a crash as the uneven dirt ditch catches the spinning wheels and the van nose dives. The sound of the patter of rain rises again as a faint plume of smoke appears from the front of the van.

“Woops.” Billy sighs.

“Let’s get this over and done with.” Marvin doesn’t stop to look around, instead he marches forward towards the smoking van. It doesn’t look quite right, at least, it doesn’t look like what they were expecting. The van is white and clean, the edges lined with thick metal. Marvin’s eyes scan over the high, small reinforced windows that circle the cabin. He approaches the doors set into the back wall and raises his shotgun. A click rings out as he exposes the barrel and ensures it is loaded.

“Somethings not right.” He murmurs as Billy walks up next to him and raises his rifle, the nose aimed at the crack between the two doors. He nods curtly. It’s larger than usual, they know that, but it’s unmistakable.

It’s a prisoner transport van.

They both hold their breath for a second as Hughie and Frenchie dart up behind them, their guns drawn and pointed at the van. Nothing moves. Nothing happens. Billy glances over his shoulder at Frenchie, whose breathing hard and shallow. They lock eyes, Billy signals to his right and Frenchie nods, moving towards the front of the van to inspect the driver’s seat.

“Looks like we’re going in ourselves boys.” Billy murmurs, but as soon as the words are out of his mouth the doors to the van spring open. They don’t have much time to react. Billy squeezes the trigger on his rifle, a dazzle of light and noise erupting from his weapon. He has always been the type of guy to shoot first and ask questions later. Hughie lets out a yelp behind him as the road descends back into the quiet pattern of rain drops and the body in front of them crumples to the ground.

Marvin dashes towards the open van doors as Billy approaches fallen figure, but he’s not entirely sure what he’s looking at. The best description he can find as he peers down at the mess in front of him is a big, deflated yellow balloon complete with arms and legs. He cocks his head slightly as he kneels down over the shape, which has a spray of red over the vast yellow surface of its back. He reaches out for what he assumes is the shoulder and pushes. The yellow material crinkles and finally Billy can make out the face of a young man as he rolls over, partially obscured by a large Perspex screen and white face mask covering the nose, mouth and chin.

“Shit.” Billy springs up, hands in the air. The rapidly deflating yellow balloon was, in fact, a decontamination suit.

“Billy!” He hears Marvin’s voice cut through his panic, and his head spins to follow his voice. “We might have a fucking problem here”

Marvin is standing in the back of the van, his shotgun raised and pointed at another person wearing the bright yellow hazmat suit. Just like his fallen comrade this suit is blistered with red marks from where the rifle’s bullets had ricocheted around the cabin and found a new target. This person is gasping for air, and reaches up under the faceguard to remove the mask from their face.

“What the fuck.” Hughie hisses.

Billy lurches into the back of the van and his eyes search the cabin. The man gulping for air is strapped into one of two metal seats that sprout from opposite walls. Blood is spattered garishly across the floor. Grey light pools in from the high windows, illuminating the faint line of transparent material that segregates the bottom third of the cabin. It would be barely noticeable except from the faint outline of a door handle on the far right, demonstrating the presence of slide screen. The material has splintered slightly with white jagged lightening marks where a bullet had attempted and failed to enter.

“This isn’t what we signed up for.” Marvin says breathlessly, but his eyes don’t move from the passenger, still strapped to their seat.

Billy doesn’t listen, Billy barely notices, instead he is staring intently at the exceptionally still figure seated on the opposite end of the cabin, behind the glass screen. For a second, he is not sure if they’re real, if the mixture of adrenaline, clinical white walls and smell of gunfire has him hallucinating. He steps forward and lowers his rifle, the skin around his eyes crinkling as they narrow, trying to steady his vision.

The woman, at least he thinks it is a woman, is slumped forward in her chair. She is strapped in, belts travelling not only across her waist and her chest, but also around her wrists and her ankles. Someone did not want her getting up off that seat.

“Please -” A gasp croaks its way out of the throat of the man who is staring down Marvin’s gun.

“You might want to put him out of his misery.” Billy grumbles as he slowly walks towards the clear barrier demarcating the cabin. The woman’s hair hangs limply in front of her, and it is only now that Billy notices how white she is. The hair sprouting from her scalp, the skin of her hands, the loose scrubs that cover her legs, the unmarked tennis shoes on her feet. It is all white. It is unearthly, and as the woman stirs and he catches a glimpse of skin on her face, furrowed across her forehead and stretched across her cheekbones, he notices it is the same unearthly shade of white as the rest of her.

“Or we could, you know…” Marvin starts, clearly not appreciating Billy’s suggestion, “ask him what the hell this is?”

The woman stirs in front of him some more and she pulls herself up until her back is straight. For brief second Billy could swear that her eyes were white as well, but as they search the air in front of her and land on him, he realises they are a piercing blue. The only spot of colour on the woman’s entire body. Billy shakes his head, letting out a deep chuckle.

“That’s a fucking Supe if I ever did see one.”

“Don’t - ” Another guttural plea from the dying passenger. Billy’s eyes dart back to the man who is reaching out a gloved hand towards him. He’s not sure what he can do for the man in this situation. “D-Don’t -” His eyes are wide with fear.

“Don’t what? Don’t shoot you?” Billy shakes his head “Bit late for that now. Damage is done my friend.”

“Who is that?” Hughie’s whisper captures the attention of all three men in the cab as he stands at the entrance of the door, eyes wide with confusion and apprehension. “She… she doesn’t look… right.”

“Couldn’t agree with you more,” Billy chimes in and leans over to get closer to the dying man who is being held in place by his seat belt, “Care to enlighten us? Why do you have this bird locked up and strapped down, and what’s with the big bird costumes, huh? You fellas germaphobes or what?”

“Sh-She-” The man shakes his head and by this point Billy realises that one of the bullets is lodged in his chest, meaning he cannot take in enough air to speak coherently. The man coughs, and a sprinkling of pink bubbles dust his lips.

“This ain’t going to work.” Billy sighs. The man’s arm is still outstretched, and Billy follows the line of his fingers across the cab of the van, landing on a manilla folder tucked neatly under the seat opposite. “That might be clue number one.” He reaches forward and picks it up, holding it up to the light. He looks down his nose at the bold letters written across the front: CRISP

“Crisp.” He says to himself. “Crisp.” He repeats, before looking over his shoulder at the woman behind the transparent screen. She is looking out at the four men, her gaze steady and unflinching, her expression betraying nothing. Billy can’t help but wonder if she can even hear them. “Is that your name. Crisp? You named after a snack?”

He opens the file, and finds a solitary, white page inside, with a series of numbers listed down the left-hand side, crudely scrawled down in pencil. “Fucking illuminating stuff here, mate.” He recognises one number, 80/55, as a blood pressure reading. He raises his eyebrows, realising it is a makeshift medical chart.

The passenger slumps over in his seat and Billy can tell he’s moments away from losing consciousness. He tosses the pointless folder at Hughie who reaches out to catch it, but fumbles, having to pluck it back off the floor of the van. “Fuck it, I’m going to go speak to this bird.” Billy announces, straightening up. “You two go see what’s holdin’ Frenchie up, maybe the driver has something to say.”

“Don’t you think maybe it’d be better if we stay put? We don’t know who she is. We don’t know what she’s capable of.” Marvin points out, nodding towards the woman who stares back at them all with an unblinking gaze. Billy shakes his head.

“Nah,” He had scanned those numbers, and from what he could discern this woman wasn’t in the best physical shape. “She’s not fit to do any harm, she won’t be a problem.” Marvin clenches his jaw, frustrated at how casually Billy is handling the situation, but decides it is not worth an argument. He nods to Hughie and the two men jump from the back end of the cab onto the moist dirt of the ditch, disappearing to find Frenchie.

Billy takes a step towards the door, his eyes locked with the icy blue pools that stand out starkly on the woman’s face. He assumes she’s sick. Her blood pressure was circling the drain, the moment she stands up he expects her to topple over. Of course, she could potentially be contagious – but the men weren’t wearing respirators and there was no independent air supply to this minimalist chic cell, so he decides whatever problem she has, it’s not airborne.

He pushes against the screen and the door slides back on itself. The woman’s eyes are wide, and he can’t tell whether the paleness of her skin makes her look ethereal or just plain sick. She’s young, not a child by any stretch but there’s something about the way she is looking at him that betrays her youth. There is a remnant of colour, a hue of something that used to be pink, on her lips, but the whiteness of her skin stains even that. He thinks for a split second that he can see a smile forming on her face, as if she is happy to see him.

There is a cough behind him, and he realises he has been staring at this woman for several seconds without breathing. He clears his throat, snapping his head round to look for the source of the noise. The passenger who he had assumed kicked the bucket, has somehow stirred up enough consciousness to make one last desperate plea.

“Don’t-” He coughs out. Billy rolls his eyes.

“Look fella, I ain’t gonna touch you, you’d be a waste of a bullet at this point.”

“No.” The man shakes his head adamantly, raising his hand, desperate for Billy to understand. “D-Don’t-”

“Don’t what?! Jesus Christ man, spit it out!”

The man takes one last shuddering breath, his eyes wide with terror he makes his final plea, “Don’t let her touch you.”


	2. Aspirate and Ossify

**Chapter 2.**

**Aspirate and Ossify**

_I have travelled past your window many times_  
_I find your face too hard to define_  
_I can't touch you,_ _hollow thing_

* * *

She watches as the visor snaps down over his face, a sheen covering his dark eyes and thick beard. He stands in front of her, flexing his fingers in the large latex gloves that he has stolen off the freshly dead body. The gloves are large enough that they travel up over the sleeves of the heavy leather trench coat he is wearing. He is close enough to her that she can smell the fresh rain clinging to his clothes. “Right, you’ve got some explaining to do.”

He expects to see fear on her face but there is none. The ice in her eyes is sharp and stares daggers through him, but the expression on her face is hard to read. Billy forces a tight smile onto his face “How about we start with a name? Unless you like to go by your favourite snack food?” The woman doesn’t reply, but slowly blinks, and Billy starts to worry that she may not speak English, “Right, crisp it is.”

“Who are you?” The voice that passes her lips is soft, but also steady and calm. Billy grins.

“We’re the fucking cavalry, love.” He announces, his breath steaming up the sheet of plastic that covers his face. The woman nods, and Billy has a suspicious feeling she’s humouring him. She looks past him at the corpse of her fellow passenger, still strung against the wall by their seatbelt.

“They’re dead.” She states this fact more to herself than for the sake of the man in front of her. He nods.

“Bullets tend to have that effect…” He murmurs under his breath, but she is not asking a question. She is barely paying attention. Her hands flex and she pulls slightly against the thick leather straps that have her bound to the chair beneath her.

“They’ll come back for me.” She says quietly, The statement doesn’t seem to be a warning to him, or reassurance to herself. Billy swears he can hear dread in her voice. He also feels as if he’s not being included in the conversation. He crouches down so he is level with her gaze.

“Vought. Right? Vought will come back for you.” He states this, just in case. Just in case Raynor had bad information. Just in case he’d accidentally ambushed some form of fucked up patient transfer without realising it. He feels a slight nudge of relief as she nods. “So you’re a Supe after all.”

The pale skin on her face contorts in confusion as she meets his eyes “Soup?”

Billy pauses and reaches out, pushing her hair back roughly from her forehead. She flinches and pulls sharply away “Did you hit your head or something?” He asks, “Supes. Homelander. The Seven. Ring any bells? Super fucking heroes.” She shakes her head, still recoiling away from the touch of his rubber clad fingers. Billy sighs, “Why they got you all locked up and strapped down then? You sick?”

His questions let her know that he doesn’t know what’s going on, that he does not know what he is doing, that he does not know who she is or why she is here. “Not quite,” She says quietly, resigning herself to his ignorance.

Billy meets her eyes and knows that she isn’t being stupid, she wasn’t born yesterday. She is not some helpless child plucked from obscurity. She’s being deliberately evasive.

“Well you’re just a wealth of information, ain’t ya?” He grits his teeth “Answer me this - why did big bird over there use his fucking dying breath to tell me to keep my hands off you?” His eyebrows rise and he sees her roll the question around in her mind. Trying to decide how much information is enough to satisfy him, how much information is too much. If it is worth investing energy into a conversation with a man who has murdered two strangers without knowing why.

She leans forward, her back straightening, “Because,” she says, and he knows she is choosing her words carefully “They think I will hurt you.” She inhales sharply and looks at him with an intensity that makes him hold his breath “I will not hurt you.”

“Well, Crisp” He spits the word out, “Consider me fucking enlightened.”

She looks at him, her eyes scanning his appearance. He has scars on his face, an unkempt head of dark thick hair and an equally unruly beard. His dark, Hawaiian patterned shirt could use both a wash and iron. He looks reckless, he looks dangerous. “Are you here to kill me?”

His eyes widen slightly at the question. He was not surprised by what she is asking, it’s an obvious question considering the circumstances, but he is surprised by how she asks it. There’s no fear in her voice, no challenge. Instead her eyes glimmer with curiosity.

“Now there’s a thought.” He murmurs, straightening up and reaching round to the back of his waistband, finding the handgun he’d tucked away. He pulls it out, freeing it from the confines of his trench coat, and points the barrel at the woman’s forehead.

She watches with bemusement as he struggles to grip the handle with the thick gloves, the loose material around his fingers making it impossible to cuff his index finger in through the trigger. “Fuck,” He hisses in frustration.

“You might need to take the gloves off.” She suggests.

“Ya think?!” He growls, raising his right hand and slipping it under his Perspex visor, biting down on the loose material with his teeth and pulling.

“Billy! Wait!” Frenchie’s voice travels from the back of the cab and Billy swings around, gun in one hand, other hand half out of an elongated rubber glove – the fingers of which are still stuck between his tightly clamped teeth. “Don’t shoot – she’s it!”

Frenchie launches himself into the back of the cab with a piece of paper clutched in his hand. “The driver didn’t make it, managed to get impaled on a tree - but I found this in his pocket.” Billy spits out the rubber glove as Frenchie darts into the small, transparent cell and smiles widely. His eyes catch the gaze of the woman strapped down to the chair beside him.

“Bonjour!” He greets her brightly and the woman returns a small smile.

“Hello.”

“What’s this then?” Billy asks as he wriggles his right hand free from the glove and plucks the paper from Frenchie’s grip.

“She’s it, the Compound R or whatever it was Raynor had you -” Frenchie stops mid-sentence, “What’s with all this?” He asks, gesturing to the thick Perspex screen Billy was trying to read the piece of paper through.

“The bird might have something contagious.”

“I don’t.” The woman corrects him, but Billy shrugs.

“Better safe than sorry, love.” He squints his eyes as he scans the sheet of paper in his hand. It’s a form, a standard travel log detailing the time on the road, the destination and a small box describing the contents of the transport. In black ink the words ‘ _ **CRISP:** Compound R – Female. Non-contact._’ are scrawled. He scowls, his trigger finger feeling itchy. “This could mean anything.”

“I think it’s pretty fucking clear what it means.” Frenchie hisses, “We can’t shoot her.”

“Why are you always trying to save supes, huh?” Billy growls.

“Frenchie’s right,” Marvin’s voice cuts through the air and Billy spins to see him standing in the back of the cabin, shoulder to shoulder with Hughie, “Raynor probably wants her alive.”

“I don’t think any of you are in a position to say what Raynor wants.” Billy tosses the piece of paper back at Frenchie who clambers in the air for it, and chucks his gun into his naked right hand, “But this bird is clearly fucking dangerous.”

“Excuse me,” The woman interjects, the calm tone of her voice slicing through the room, “I don’t know who you are, where you came from, or really what’s happening here, but you may want to make a decision. These trips out are always closely watched, if you’re not with Vought then they’re going to have people here really soon.”

“She’s right, we got to go.” Marvin’s words come out through clenched teeth. Billy shakes his head.

“Sorry Crisp, you ain’t getting away that easy.” He raises the gun in his right hand and points it towards the woman’s head.

“Non!” Frenchie hisses, “Tu ne peux pas”

“Watch me.” Billy spits out.

Crisp looks down the barrel of the gun in front of her, the dark small hole hiding the bullet. As if following his instructions, she looks up at Billy and locks eyes with him. She believes him when he points this gun at her, she believes he will pull the trigger. Her gaze doesn’t falter as she leans forward gently, until her forehead touches the end of the barrel, until it is flush with her skin.

Billy frowns, not fully understanding the gesture, not understanding why she isn’t afraid. Not understanding why there’s no anger, no defiance, no rage hidden behind her eyes as he threatens her life. Instead her demeanour is one of calm acceptance. He clears his throat, and an uneasy feeling creeps up his back, making his skin prickle and hair stand on end. “What the fuck are you trying?”

“Honestly,” Her eyes don’t move from his, but her voice is forgiving, resignation spilling over each word “I just want to see what happens.”

* * *

_He holds her hands tightly in his own, he can feel her trembling, he can see her wide, blue eyes darting around the room. She soaks in the environment and everything is frightening. The medical team stand to alert with their white face masks and crinkled, sterile gowns. They look like aliens to this child. He squeezes her hands, feeling their warmth through the sterile gloves that he has to wear in the examination room._

_“Hey, Chris, look at me.” He whispers with a low voice, grabbing her attention. He knows at this moment in time he is the closest thing to reassurance she has on offer. She is barely ten years old, she is alone in the most pure sense of the word, and he is her touchstone of comfort, “Chris you’re going to be okay.”_

_“I’m scared.” She whispers, as if confessing a shameful secret. There are tears are in her eyes and he reaches up to pull down his surgical mask. At this point he cares more about showing a kind face than maintaining a sterile field. She has changed so much since she arrived with them. Her hair had been dark, her face sun kissed and spattered with freckles. Now she is a ghost, with snow white hair and translucent skin. Whatever is working inside her erasing all the colour from her life._

_“Is it going to hurt?”_

_“Dr Ralfson we need to get this moving.” One of the masked figures speaks from behind him and he nods._

_“Okay, okay, just give me a second.” The last thing they need is Chris’ terror. He looks down at her and gives her the most reassuring smile he can muster “It’ll hurt a bit, but you know what – you’ve got this.” He tells her as he gives her hand a squeeze, “You’re the bravest girl I know.”_

_She smiles, all gaps and gums. He has got into a pattern of not lying to her, of telling her the truth in easy to swallow doses. This will hurt, but she needs to know this. She has been through so much already. “I’ll be okay.” She tells him, reiterating his words back to him._

_“I’ll be right here the entire time.” He tells her as the medical team descend onto the table, preparing the instruments for the procedure, “I won’t let anything bad happen to you.” He promises. He lets go of her hands and takes a step back._

_He watches as she lies down with her stomach flat on the small examination table. A nurse reaches over and carefully unties the back of the child’s hospital gown, exposing an expanse of bare skin. Their fingers measure her hips before finding the right spot, marking it with a small dot of ink. The skin is painted with disinfectant and a doctor leans over with a syringe in hand, prodding the stained skin._

_Chris’ eyes widen as the needle is inserted, but makes no noise as the local anaesthetic is administered. Her eyes are trained on Doctor Ralfson, finding it easiest to focus on his smiles of encouragement than the fingers of the doctor behind her._

_“That should numb up nicely.” A few seconds pass and his voice breaks through the silence again, “Tell me Christiane, can you feel that?”_

_Nothing. No sensation. “No.” She yelps._

_“Good, that means it’s working.”_

_Dr Ralfson’s body tenses as he sees the doctor make a small incision with the scalpel where the nurse had left her mark, along the line of her hip. He hopes Chris doesn’t notice his apprehension as the doctor is handed the aspiration needle._

_She feels it. The anaesthesia that flooded her skin and fat and muscle did not reach the bone. The pain sears through her body, the sensation of needle scraping through rise of her hip is acute and sharp. She screams before she knows she’s doing it. The sound of her agony shouts out into the clinical treatment room. Her eyes shut tight as salty tears sprout in the creases. She wants the pain to stop, she wants the doctor to stop digging through her skeleton, she wants her body to fight back._

_The doctor rotates the needle, hoping additional friction will force it through. Nothing. He pushes down, his feet bracing himself against the floor. Nothing._

_“Dr Ralfson!” The nurse's voice is sharp and urgent as the aspiration needle struggles to break through. Dr Ralfson dashes over to the end of the table, crouching down to where Chris’s face is tightly screwed up, her eyes clamped shut to the world._

_“Hey, hey, Chris,” His voice is low and reassuring. “Chris look at me, this is important, look at me.”_

_She takes a shuddering intake of breath. He can hear the doctor grunting with effort, the needle not moving despite his full body weight behind it, “Shit” he mutters into his surgical mask, “she’s fighting this.”_

_“Chris,” Dr Ralfson whispers one last time and the girl slowly opens her eyes. Instead of the stunning crystal blue that typically glistened in her Iris', the eyes that look back at him are different. A cloud has descended over them, thick, white and opaque, taking all the shine and life away. “Chris, stay with me, let them do this.” He reaches out and gently places his hand on her head. “Don’t fight this, it will be over soon.”_

_Chris takes another deep shuddering breath and blinks. She feels the hand on her head, the muted warmth against her skin, and she tries to stay with that sensation through the pain. Her eyelids flutter a few times, and Dr Ralfson watches as her eyes start shining, the clouds dissipating. He hears a grunt and looks up._

_“We’re in.” The doctor announces. A thick maroon liquid is drawn up from the needle into a large syringe. The doctor unscrews the container hands it to the nurse, before smoothly retracting the needle from Chris’ lower back. She hisses, like a tyre deflating, and Dr Ralfson watches as tension visibly leaves her body._

_“That’s it,” He says softly to her, smiling down and wiping away the tears that have tracked their way across the skin of her face, “You did it.”_

_“Can I make a suggestion,” The doctor throws the aspiration needle into a metal kidney dish, “Maybe teach her a bit about pain management. Might be a bit more useful than ossification. She's got a lot more of this ahead of her.”_


	3. Pink Rabbits

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A little warning if you're upset by gore or bad things happening to animals. This gets a little graphic.

**Chapter 3.**

**Pink Rabbits**

_You said it would be painless_   
_The needle in the dark_   
_You said it would be painless_   
_It wasn't that at all_

* * *

She can hear the patter of rain on the roof of the van as it speeds down the forest road, putting as much distance between the discarded corpses and the shell of the transport truck as possible. Her eyes are trained on Billy, who sits opposite her with his hand gun still pointed at her skull. They have decided not to kill her. Her complacent attitude towards her own life was enough to pique Billy’s interest and post-pone her execution.

“You really don’t need that.” She tells him. They are sitting on the floor in the back of the van the Boys had arrived in, Marvin seated up front in the driver’s seat. Billy did not trust anyone else to keep watch over their new hostage.

“I’ll be the judge of that.” He spits back.

“What do you think I am going to do?” She asks, raising her eyebrows. Her hands had been bound in front of her, but the bonds weren’t particularly tight or secure. She had watched Hughie struggle to manage the material of the cables between his fingers, his dexterity lost in the folds of the thick, rubber gloves. She knows she can pull on them and the knots would unfurl.

“I don’t fucking know and I don’t want to find out.” Billy adjusts his grip on the gun and starts searching in the pockets of his jacket, trying hard to maintain eye contact with Crisp. She wonders for a moment whether it would be worth provoking him, whether she should just let him shoot her, whether she should just take this opportunity to find freedom and leave these men in her wake.

She won’t. She knows she won’t. She wouldn't know how to survive out there, and anyway, she is far too curious about the events unfolding around her to remove herself from the equation. “Why are you here?” She asks, these men are as much a mystery to her as she is to them. “What were you expecting to find in that van?”

“Not you that’s for damn sure.” Billy grunts as his fingers find what he’s been looking for and he produces a phone from his pocket. He glances down at it, awkwardly trying to use his left hand to operate the screen.

“Compound R.” Comes Marvin’s voice from the driver’s seat. Billy shoots him a glare, but Marvin is wise enough to know that, considering the circumstances, sharing information is probably their best option, “Of course we weren’t told what that actually was, Billy over there was happy enough to go full steam ahead totally blind. But from the looks of it, it’s you.”

“It’s me.” She repeats, her eyes darting between Marvin and Billy, who is still furiously trying to operate his phone screen one handed, “You think I’m this ‘Compound R.’”

“Looks like it,” Billy grunts.

“And what does this Compound R do exactly?” She asks, she is trying to gauge how much they know about her, why they might have pushed her transport off the road, whether their intentions were even more insidious than Vought’s.

“Not a fucking clue, love, we’re just the delivery men.” Billy presses his phone to his ear. Crisp purses her lips, she can just about make out the faint rings coming from his receiver. A person on the other end picks up, “Oi, Susan.” Billy starts, “you’ve got a lot of fucking explaining to do.”

“Can you tell me one thing - ” Marvin’s voice travels from the front as Billy averts his gaze, as if that will afford his phone call some modicum of privacy. “you don’t work for Vought, right? I mean they had you strapped down to that chair pretty securely.”

“No I don’t work for them.” Crisp replies. She has never particularly thought about her relationship to Vought, she has never had enough scope in her world to think about how she would explain everything to a stranger, “It’s a bit… complicated. I suppose you could say…” She scrapes through her mind for the most accurate words “I’m under their care.”

Marvin hesitates, “So you _are_ sick?” There is a hint of fear in his voice.

“No, not exactly. It’s more like I’m their ward.” She clarifies, knowing how stupid that sounds considering she’s an adult, “I’ve been with them since I was nine.”

“I know we’re burned but seriously, we need to talk, you need to see this.” Billy hisses down his phone.

“So why’d they have you strapped down and in a fucking holding cell if they’re meant to be taking care of you?” Marvin follows up, suspicion embedded in the question. Crisp bites her lower lip and lets out a sigh.

“They don’t trust me.” She looks down at her hands and flexes her fingers, a familiar feeling of guilt welling up in the pit of her stomach, “I hurt someone once and they haven’t trusted me since.” There is a pause in the questioning, long enough to hear Billy swear emphatically down the phone.

“Did they deserve it?” She hears Marvin asks and she looks up, noticing him watching her in the rear-view mirror, “The person you hurt, did they have it coming?” This was not the question she was anticipating.

“I’m not sure.” She mumbles, “I mean, at the time I thought they did but… honestly, I didn’t really mean to do it. It just kind of happened.”

Billy pulls the phone away from his ear and pushes it down into his pocket, returning his attention to Crisp and steadying his grip on the gun. His arm is starting to ache slightly from being extended for such a long period of time, but he reminds himself of those thick leather straps that held her down before. People don’t get tied down like Hannibal Lecter over a simple accident.

“Right, Susan’s scraped together a safe house where we can bring this bird and lie low until we figure out what the fuck is going on.” Billy announces, glaring over at Crisp, “And then we can put a bullet between those pretty blue eyes of yours.”

* * *

_“They’re dead, they’re all dead.” The woman stands with her arms folded across her chest, her fair hair swept up into a bun to keep it from her face. She is scowling, and frustration is evident in her voice. Dr Ralfson stands next to her, leaning against the wall with an outstretched arm. The pair of them are wearing lab coats, and are standing in an empty hallway with white tiled floors. Next to them is a large window with wire mesh criss-crossing between the double-glazed panes of glass._

_“What does that mean for her?” Dr Ralfson asks. The woman raises her eyebrows, her forehead crumpling. She is younger than him, but not by very much. Her tailored shirt and designer heels give away her status and success._

_“It means we need more marrow, I mean it’s just swimming around in there.” She murmurs, and glances in through the window. Behind the glass is a desk covered in open books and notepads. At the desk sits Chris, with her long, white hair pulled back into a pony tail. She chews on her lower lip as she uses her fingers to flick through the pages of a heavy textbook, “But we need to come up with a different method, even just to sustain it a little longer in vivo.”_

_“What are you thinking Martha?” There’s a cautious edge to Dr Ralfson’s voice._

_“I’m thinking…” She inhales sharply, “We need her to be more involved.”_

_“I don’t know…” Dr Ralfson exhales slowly and looks through the window at the teenage girl, devouring the information in the book in front of her, eyes wide with curiosity._

_“Come on, Nicolas, you know we haven’t touched what she’s capable of. We have this resource sitting in there, and all we’re using her for is her blood and her bone marrow. It’s wasteful.” Martha shrugs. Nicolas looks tense, and reaches up to rub the ginger and grey whiskers sprouting from his chin, “Besides, I’ve already ran it past Mr Edgar and he thinks it’s a great idea.”_

_“Don’t you think that’s jumping the shark a little?”_

_“No, I think we’ve dragged our feet for far too long.” Martha states, turning to face Nicolas, “Think about it, she’s been in this facility for four years and we still don’t really understand what is going on with her. We don’t understand why she survived, why she has assimilated the virus in this way, why she’s not contagious… All we’ve been able to do is isolate the virus momentarily, and we’re not even close to replicating her infection's course. We don’t even really know what replication would look like because we don’t know her full capability. We’re scared to test her limits. Hell, you’re scared to even let her stretch them a little.”_

_“I don’t want her being turned into another Homelander.” Nicolas mutters, turning towards the door into the room where Chris is sitting. Martha lets out an incredulous laugh._

_“Trust me, if all you have her doing is fixing her own grazed knees, there’s not going to be much risk of that happening.” Martha sighs, following him into the room._

_Chris’ face snaps up from the book she has been buried in and a smile splits across her face. “Nick!” She bolts up from the chair and pounces towards him. At this age she is all long limbs and sharp angles, and she throws her arms around his shoulders. Martha gives a tight smile as Chris pulls away and catches her eyes, giving her an embarrassed nod as she steps back._

_“Professor Dayton.” Chris says her name quietly._

_“Lovely to see you again Christiane.”_

_“What are you on today?” Nicolas asks, nodding towards the large open book on the desk. The embarrassment of her enthusiasm disappears and excitement springs back into her face._

_“Haemoglobinopathies.” She announces, and flits across the room back to her book, “They’re really interesting, but kind of suck. In alpha thalassaemia major most babies die.”_

_Nicolas smiles at her, “What genes are involved?”_

_Chris’ head snaps up again and an appreciative smile crosses her face, “Depends, there are different globin chains that involve different genes.” She tells him with pride, happy to demonstrate her learning, “But in general the mutations are found in a cluster on the short arm of chromosome 16 and chromosome 11.”_

_“Why are you teaching her this?” Nicolas hears Martha whisper quietly under her breath, quiet and sharp enough that Chris does not notice._

_“In order to treat something, you must first understand it.” Nicolas points out quietly. He sees anger rise behind Martha’s eyes as a tight, forced smile appears on her lips, her teeth showing._

_“She’s not going to be treating anything, Doctor.” She hisses, “We’re not in the business of medicine, we’re in the business of making super heroes.” Martha’s jaw clenches as she turns on her heel swiftly to face Chris._

_“Christiane,” Martha sighs with a soft, sing-song voice, “Do you like bunny rabbits?”_

-

Billy’s grip on her upper arm is tight and pinches her skin as he pulls her from the back of the van. She grunts as she tries to steady herself without pulling on the cable that binds her hands together, knowing it may fall apart with the slightest pressure. She does not know where they are, but then again, she wouldn’t. Her world has been limited to the same white clinical corridors for almost two decades. She looks around as the cold air hits her skin, the rain having subsided.

She is standing in an alley way, the grime of the city pasted on the concrete. Around her are high, red brick buildings, pushed together tightly with no space to breathe. The van has pulled up next to an unmarked green door, buried deep in the brick work of a multi-story building. There is no one around, but as she peers down the alley, past the trash cans and piles of garbage, she can see a busy road.

“Right let’s get her inside quick.” Billy mumbles to Marvin, who has appeared from the driver’s seat. Marvin nods and dashes up to the entry, his eyes scanning the door frame for a way in. He spots the lock box pinned to the inside.

“Raynor give you a code?” He asks. Billy has his left, gloved hand wrapped tightly around Crisp’s upper arm as she stands next to him in the street, his right hand still holding the gun that is trained on her head. She looks bored, if a little uncomfortable. Tyres screech as the other car pulls into the alley way, signalling the arrival of Frenchie and Hughie.

“Uh, 5581.” Billy rhymes off the numbers while his gaze focuses intensely on Crisp. She sighs as he pushes her towards the door.

“Seriously, put the gun away.” Crisp exhales. Billy smirks.

“Well if you say so darlin’” He mutters sarcastically. Marvin types the code into the lockbox and the latch opens, revealing a key to the door.

“Picture this. A person turns down this street and sees you with a gun in your hand, pointed at me, with my hands tied.” Crisp points this out and Billy scowls, “It’s not a great look.”

“We’ll be inside in a second, so don’t worry your pretty little head about it, alright?” He growls.

“What’s happening, where are we?” Frenchie asks as he and Hughie climb out of their car.

“Safe house.” Marvin tells them as he slides the key into the lock and twists. There is a click and the door swings open. “Raynor set it up, off the books.”

Billy pushes Crisp abruptly in through the open door after Marvin, entering a dark corridor that smells of a mixture of damp and ammonia. As they reach the end of the hallway they are greeted by a narrow stair well. Marvin descends first, and Billy nudges Crisp with the barrel of his gun. She follows him down into the dark, and the next door opens into a large, dank room.

There are washing machines and dryers dotted haphazardly around the place. The fluorescent light bulbs hang from a greying ceiling and cast everything in an unnatural green light. There is a metal table sitting in the centre of the room, surrounded by white plastic seats that offer no comfort. In the far corner Crisp can make out what appears to be a mattress lying on the floor, no sheets, just a grey pillow and a duvet covered in spots of black mildew.

She wonders if she’ll die here. She wonders why she doesn’t care if she does.

“Lovely.” Marvin sighs.

Crisp feels herself being pulled forwards by Billy, and she trips over her feet, catching herself. “Right love,” He is trying to be as rough as possible, trying to hurt her. She can feel the pressure from his fingertips biting into her skin, and each pull is sharp and sudden. “Time to get you settled into your new home.”

“Will you just -” She yanks her shoulder back, and this movement is unexpected enough that Billy loses his grip, her arm slipping from his rubber clad fingers. She sees the anger form on his face as she stumbles away from him and finds her footing. She pulls her wrists apart and the cables that were loosely holding her hands together fall away. Billy refocuses the aim of his gun as she stands in front of him, raising her hands to the side of her head.

Silence has fallen over the room, the men holding their breath, half expecting her to explode, or shoot laser beams from her eyes, or sprout wings. Instead Crisp holds her hands in the air, fingers splayed, her eyes wide and earnest. “Your boy can’t tie knots to save his life.” She tells them.

“Just give me a fucking excuse.” Billy snarls.

“I have nowhere to go!” She cries. There is emotion in her voice this time, and it catches her off guard. She collects herself for a second, her eyes locked with Billy’s, “It’s been almost twenty years, and I have no one. I don’t want to go back, okay? I don’t know who you are, I don’t know what you want with me. I don’t care if you’re going to just stick me down here and let me starve. Or if you’ve just brought me down here to shoot me. But you’re not them. And I just don’t want to go back.”

There’s a second when she thinks she can see a softness in Billy’s face, as his brow furrows and his eyes shine. He adjusts his grip on the gun, but does not lower it. “Darling, what the _fuck_ did they do to you?”

* * *

_“Subject 224, incubation period 10 minutes, subject should become symptomatic once Volhard virus load reaches 6.18 log10 GEQ/ml.” There is a click, and Professor Dayton takes a second to consider before pushing the record button again, “First trial of infection with CRISPR support”_

_The rabbit sitting in front of Chris is white with small, shining, black eyes lined with a blue Iris. It sits on a bare metal table in the centre of a white room. Chris is perched on the edge of a metal chair, and feels very much on display. On the wall opposite her is an expansive window, allowing Professor Dayton and Dr Ralfson to watch over her. They told her there was nothing to worry about, but the fact they said this from behind a protective screen was not reassuring._

_“Christiane,” Professor Dayton’s soft voice swims through a speaker perched in the top right corner of the room. She is leaning forward in a safe, isolated booth behind the window, pressing a finger down on a button that activates the microphone, “You might want to pick the bunny up.”_

_Chris’s eyes instinctively seek out Dr Ralfson, who stands behind Professor Dayton with a frown on his face, his arms folded tightly across his chest. His eyes are shielded by the rimless spectacles he’s recently started wearing into work, his face creased with worry. He nods gently._

_Chris turns back to the rabbit on the table and frowns. It is staring back at her vacantly, nose twitching. She reaches out and places her hands on either side of it, it squirms as she hooks her thumbs under its front legs and lifts. She holds it out in front of her, entirely unsure why she is being asked to do this._

_“How does it feel?” She hears Professor Dayton ask through the intercom. She scrunches up her nose in confusion._

_“I don’t know…” She murmurs, looking into the rabbit’s eyes, “Fluffy.” The rabbit makes a dramatic twist of its body as it tries to free itself from her grasp._

_“No,” She hears Professor Dayton corrects her, clearly exasperated, “Not like that.”_

_Chris looks over at the window and sees Dr Ralfson push Professor Dayton away from the microphone, “Chris” His voice crackles through the speaker, “She wants you to try and see if you can…” He doesn’t know how to describe it, there are no words for this, “Feel it. All of it. The way you can with yourself.”_

_On the surface it doesn’t make much sense, but Chris understands what he means. Slowly, over the few years she’d been with Vought, she was learning that how she experienced her body, how she felt in her body, wasn’t the same as everyone else. When she tried, really tried, she could feel the red blood cells spinning through her veins. She could feel the sodium ions attaching to the neurons in her peripheral nervous system, sparking depolarisation. She could feel her bones growing at the epiphyseal plates. The more days passed, the more she felt it. The more acutely aware she became of every cell and process in her body. And some days she swears she could control it._

_She nods and looks back at the rabbit with its vacant stare. She clears her throat and leans closer to the animal. Slowly, her eyes start swimming, and a murky, white cloud appears to swirl in their centre, covering her pupil and iris. She focuses and tries to feel, she tries to zone out the sensation of the gas exchange in her own alveoli, or the sparkling circuitry of her heart. She tries to feel what’s beneath the soft, fluffy skin under her fingers._

_She gasps, recoiling and holding the rabbit as far away from her body as she can manage. She blinks furiously and the life and colour return to her eyes. The rabbit, however, looks different. It is trembling in her hands, and the eyes that were once clear black and blue, now have the exact same milky hue to them that Chris had peered through. Chris does not understand what is happening, what she just felt, but the rabbit starts thrashing in her grip._

_“What is it?” Dr Ralfson whispers softly, watching as Chris stares in horror at the white rabbit in her hands. He hears Professor Dayton let out an audible groan._

_“It’s symptomatic.” She shakes her head, “There’s not much of a grace period with the virus.”_

_The rabbit is thrashing violently, and Chris lets out a frightened squeak before dropping it back down on the table. It lands on its four feet and is perfectly still, staring back at her with milky white eyes. It is breathing rapidly, its little chest rising up and down in short succession. Chris looks desperately at the window, looking for reassurance. Professor Dayton leans forward and presses the intercom button, “What did you feel?” she asks nonchalantly. Chris stares back at her, confused by the calmness of her voice._

_A chilling scream shatters through the white room, high pitched and human. Chris jumps, terrified, and turns to see the rabbit sitting on the table, its entire body trembling, a child’s shriek coming from its mouth. Her eyes widen as the loud scream becomes gurgled and the rabbit topples onto its side, its legs thrashing desperately beneath it. There is a yelp, and the its body seems to tighten as a thick, black ooze seeps from its mouth. Chris cries out in fear, pushing herself away from the table, the chair scraping loudly on the floor._

_“What the fuck,” She hisses as the ooze keeps coming. Most of it is thick, like gelatine, piling up under the rabbit’s chin as it wretches and screeches. The more that comes out, the more sludge slides over the shiny metal surface, the thinner the liquid becomes. Soon, it is spilling out of the rabbit’s mouth, out of its nose, and as it tries to scream out in pain it blows bubbles in it the dark, opaque fluid._

_The horror Chris feels in her stomach is overwhelming. She can smell it, whatever is draining from this rabbit’s body smells metallic, sweet and hot, and there’s a part of her that knows some it must be blood. Black blood, deep from within the animal’s body, clotted and viscous. She rises slowly from the seat and inhales sharply as she stands over the suffering rabbit to see whether it is dead._

_The rabbit shudders, its eyes are still milky and staring blankly up at Chris. Then slowly, slowly enough that Chris doesn’t notice at first, the milky film of the eyes develops a pink hue. She tries to look closer, for a second thinking her mind is playing tricks on her, but sure enough the rabbits unblinking eyes become flushed. Chris steps even closer, curiosity only slightly outweighing her fear, and watches as the thin, transparent film of those flushed eyes starts to disintegrate and the milky pink exudate starts seeping out, over the rabbit’s white fur. Chris’ face drops and a wave of nausea overtake her._

_The rabbits back feet kick, and it sucks in one last shuddering gasp of air. Tears are pricking in Chris’ eyes as the animal’s diaphragm spasms and contracts, and a heavy cough sends the black, thick liquid spraying over her face and t-shirt. She stumbles backwards, “Oh my god” she cries out, reaching up and trying to wipe the fluid from her face, smearing it across her stark skin. She feels the horror rise in her throat as the smell of copper overtakes her, “Oh my god!” She sobs, stumbling backwards away from the dead rabbit._

_She feels a primal urge to cry, the sobs shaking through her entire body as she stares at the aftermath in front her. She feels as if she’s nine years old again. She feels as if she is sitting next her mother’s body, stained with the blood and exudate, shaking her to wake her up. She can see her father in front of her, globules of thick, dark blood coating his chin, the sockets of his eyes empty and weeping._

_“Christiane,” Professor Dayton’s voice is sharp. And Chris turns to look at the stern woman standing behind the glass, glaring down at the trembling teenager “What did you feel?”_

_Chris takes a shaky breath in, and tries to find the words to answer. “Nothing,” She chokes out, knowing this is what frightens her most of all, that the deep emptiness she felt in that sick rabbit was something she could always feel in herself, hidden away in the recess of each cell, “I felt absolutely nothing.”_


	4. Vice Grip

**Chapter 4.**

**Vice grip**

_Her heart beats like a breeze block thrown down the stairs_  
_Her blood is thicker than concrete forced to be brave she was,_

_born into a grave_

* * *

The night is long, and Billy is intent on staying awake for every second of it. He sits in a white plastic seat, his handgun in his lap, his eyes staring intensely at Crisp. She sits on the mattress on the floor, with her back against the wall, staring down at her lap. Dirty marks from the grime of the world are smeared down the front of her white scrub top, from sweat and dust and the mould that lines the walls of this room. She feels like she wants to smile when she sees it, a reminder that she’s no longer cooped up in sterile aseptic rooms.

It is just Billy and herself in this room. He had not listened to Hughie and Frenchie when they told him that he would need to sleep. And he certainly did not listen to Marvin when he insisted the girl could be left alone, behind lock and key, after eating up the sob story she had fed them. Billy didn’t buy it, or at least he told himself he didn’t. He wouldn’t put it past Vought to keep a supe hidden in clandestine laboratories for decades at a time. He didn’t believe, for a second, that this woman valued her life so little that she wouldn’t climb out of this basement the moment she found the opportunity.

So, Billy is left to keep watch. The others insisted that they got a motel room somewhere nearby, disgusted by the sight and sounds of the grimy room they’d been provided by Raynor. Crisp had not complained once since she had shaken her hands free. They have been sitting in silence for hours, Crisp settling down on the disgusting mattress as if it was memory foam.

He looks down and checks his wrist watch briefly. It is 2 am. His stomach is wrapped in a tight knot from hunger and all he wants is a glass of bourbon. And sleep. He really wants to sleep. He can feel it tugging on the back of his eyes.

Crisp, on the other hand, with her body slumped against the wall and her legs laid out straight in front of her, looks as bright as she had when she arrived. She looks up at Billy and sees his heavy lids, his lax grip on the gun in his lap, and a tug of sympathy pulls in her stomach, “I promise I won’t try anything if you want some shut eye.” she offers.

“Nice try, love.” Billy mumbles, inhaling sharply and deeply before pushing himself upright in his chair.

She shrugs and let her eyes travel around the room. They are in a basement; exposed pipes travel along the ceiling and disappear into the walls. There is liquid dripping down from their joints, and she hopes it is just water. She watches as a cockroach scuttles beneath Billy’s chair before disappearing underneath one of the large washing machines. She can hear scratching, and she knows that somewhere in this room there is a rat.

“So, _Billy,_ ” She uses his name for the first time and it feels unnatural, she can see him tense from the forced familiarity, “How did you get into this line of work?” She doesn’t exactly know what his line of work is, but she can guess that it is not supportive of Vought industries.

“Well, _Crispy_ ,” He sneers, as if this play on Vought’s code name for her is in some way offensive. But she smiles to herself, disarming Billy. It’s different, it reminds her she’s not at Vought anymore, and that thought is endlessly comforting, “It’s none of your fucking business.” He groans as he slides further into his chair.

“Small talk will help keep you awake.” She tells him plainly. He rolls his eyes, but his head is feeling heavier with every passing second. She scrapes her teeth along her bottom lip and glances down at her lap, picking at a loose thread on the bottom of her scrub top. “Why do you hate 'supes' so much?”

“Because you’re a bunch of self-righteous, power hungry, arrogant cunts.” He mumbles this as he feels his head tip forward, but catches himself. He clears his throat and props his elbow on the arm of the chair, leaning his chin on his hand. Her smile broadens at this response, with her teeth flashing and eyes creasing. Billy gazes at her through a fatigue induced haze. She is other-worldly, in a way that makes her seem both sick and alien, but undeniably beautiful.

“You know I haven’t met many,” Crisp sighs, her eyes still diverted to her lap, “but from my limited experience I’d be inclined to agree.”

“You don’t think you’re a supe?” Billy challenges, his jaw moving against the palm of his hand as he strains to hold his head steady, “You’re kidding yourself love.” She hadn’t demonstrated any sort of ability in front of him, aside from an unnaturally high level of patience and a casual indifference to death. She shakes her head and her smile slowly fades from her face.

“Never got the chance, did I?” She asks, looking back up at him. She brushes a strand of silken white hair from in front her face and shrugs, letting out a dejected laugh, “I think super heroes do a lot more than just…” Her eyes shine and she averts her gaze, “get poked and prodded and rolled out every so often for fucked up experiments. I think they actually get the opportunity to help people.”

“They really pulled a number on you?” The last thing Billy wanted was to feel sympathy for this woman. Since he’d lost his wife his world view had been so myopic, so focused, that he never took the time or energy to consider another person’s experience. In this sleep-deprived fog though, with this ghost of a person sitting in front him, it was hard to compartmentalise in the same way, “How’d you land in Vought’s lap anyway, what happened to your parents?”

“They got sick.” She spits these words out of her mouth hastily, before inhaling sharply, “We got sick.” She corrects herself, “They died. I didn’t.” Crisp goes quiet and returns to picking at the loose thread on her scrubs. A silence settles heavily over the room and when she glances up again she sees Billy’s eyes are shut as he leans heavily on his arm, sleep finally winning.

* * *

_It feels wrong, on a fundamental level. Dr Ralfson had faced many ethical grey areas since starting work with Vought international, some that kept him up at night, but something about Chris amplified those issues and muddied the waters so badly that every decision felt morally opaque. The sixteen-year-old girl sits in front of him on the clinical examination table, her white hair swept up in a messy bun. He has watched her over the past couple of years grow into a head-strong teenager. She wears a worn, oversized Metallica t-shirt, hanging off her right shoulder, her bright blue eyes surrounded by dark smudges. He has always tried his best to bring some semblance of a normal life to her limited world, letting her grow as a person within the confines of the laboratory._

_“So, you’re not doing this then?” She asks him, narrowing her eyes. Dr Ralfson sits on a stool in the corner of the room, out of the way. He shakes his head as his eyes scan to the machine vice clamped onto the stainless-steel trolley that sits between them. The mouth of the vice is open, waiting._

_“Come on, Chris.” He sighs with a shrug, “I couldn’t.” She smiles, and his heart breaks._

_“You’re a total softie.” She says this with all the affection and compassion in the world._

_“Jones knows what he’s doing.” He says, and he hates that he knows this. As this statement passes his lips there is a beep, and the reinforced white door swings open, a young man stepping inside._

_“Christiane,” The man announces. He is much younger than Dr. Ralfson, with dark shaggy hair and a sharp jaw. He grins and his flashing teeth drip with confidence, he holds in his gloved hands a heavy orthopaedic mallet. The door swings shut behind him and recognition flickers in Chris’ eyes._

_“Dr Jones,” She says his name warmly, and her gaze darts to the mallet in his hands, “You ready?”_

_“I’m ready if you are!” He counters, nodding curtly to Dr Ralfson and reaching out for the stainless-steel trolley, pulling it closer to Chris so it sits in front of her._

_“I was born ready.” Chris grins with all the certainty of youth. Dr Jones places the mallet on the trolley next to the vice, the metal clanging, and holds out his latex clad hands in front of Chris, palms up._

_“Ladies choice, left, or right?”_

_“Left.” Dr Ralfson interjects, causing Dr Jones to turn around, “Just in case, you know... we haven’t done this before – would prefer it to be her non-dominant arm.” The knot forming in Dr Ralfson’s stomach tightens and makes him feel sick, but the last thing he wants to do is leave._

_“Left it is.” Dr Jones says with a nod and takes Chris’ left arm in his hands. She doesn’t flinch or pull away as he moves the arm down into the vice sitting in front of her, the jaws open just below her elbow. She holds it there with the palm of her hand facing the ground, as Dr Jones grabs the lever of the vice and starts to twist, the jaws closing in, pressing down on her pale skin, causing it to blanch further._

_“Maybe…” She hears Dr Ralfson breathe and looks up. He is staring at her arm in that vice with a pained expression on his face, and the only thing she wants to do is reassure him, make him believe she is stronger than he realises, make him understand that she will be okay. “Maybe you should give yourself a nerve block, you know, make it a bit easier?”_

_Chris smiles at him, and shrugs, feeling the resistance from where her arm is clamped in place, “I need to feel it, it helps.” She tells him. She had grown to learn, over time and the repeated procedures she had been subjected to, that pain has a tremendous ability to focus her attention. It hurt, but it told her everything she needed to know, “Nick,” she says his name softly, “I’m going to be okay.”_

_Dr Jones leans over and picks up the orthopaedic mallet in his hand, looking back over to Dr Ralfson who is holding his breath, “Look it might be better if you don’t watch.” He suggests. Dr Ralfson clears his throat and shakes his head, for whatever reason he feels a bit better going through these things with Chris, although over time his presence has become far less about reassuring her and a lot more about reassuring himself, “Right kid, you ready?” Dr Jones asks, returning his attention to Chris._

_She takes a deep, sharp, inhalation of breath and nods decisively. Dr Jones grips the mallet tightly in his right hand and raises it up above his head. He doesn’t count down, after all there’s no way to prepare a person for what’s coming, and within a second he has brought the mallet swinging down, grunting with the effort, his entire body weight behind it. The large, black, block of the mallet comes into quick, hard contact with Chris’ forearm._

_She yelps as her arm snaps, a crack echoing through the room, her hand now pointed at an unnatural angle, pain flooding her senses. She sucks in another deep breath as she feels the fragmented bone pushing against her muscle, blood leaking into the surrounding tissues from severed vessels, her nerve endings on fire. Dr Jones holds the mallet slack at his side as he sees her eyes turn a misty shade of white, her face contorted with pain._

_She is quick, the searing pain focusing her as she contracts her muscles, causing them to swell and undulate as they force the shattered bone back into place. She feels the cells spilling out from the shattered edges replicate, filling the cracks. She pushes the platelets and fibrin to the splits in her damaged veins, plugging the leaks as the smooth tissue grows back around them. She takes another deep breath and blinks a few times, her gleaming blue eyes returning her to the present moment._

_“Shit!” She laughs, as she looks down at her arm. She flexes her fingers and balls her hand into a fist. In less than twenty seconds her radius and ulna had been broken and set. Dr Ralfson sits with his eyes wide, his lips parted, trying to dampen down the feeling of awe and wonder that is crackling in his chest. Chris never fails to take his breath away._

_“Right kid,” Dr Jones is grinning, but the mallet is still in his hand, “You ready for the next step?”_

_“Next step?” Dr Ralfson cuts in, he knew today they were running a test on Chris’ ability to manipulate bone, but he assumed that was limited to her ability to recover._

_“Professor Dayton wants me to try something new out,” Chris admits, her arm still in the vice, her eyes focused on the white expanse of skin on her forearm. “If it doesn’t work then all it means is I’ve to fix another broken arm.”_

_Dr Ralfson watches as Chris’ eyes swim again, the translucent white haze spreading out from her pupils. He feels his stomach drop and his heart start to speed up. He is not worried about what will happen if it doesn’t work, he is far more worried about what will happen if it does. He had seen her potential at the beginning, and he is acutely aware the only thing preventing Vought from fully exploiting it is the fact she hasn’t quite realised it yet. He watches as she stares forward with her glazed white eyes, her sight seemingly lost in the mist, and she curls her hand into a tight fist, nodding slowly._

_“I think that should be it.” She says to Dr Jones quietly. The young man nods._

_“Alright then.” He says and raises the mallet once more above his head. He brings it rocketing down towards her outstretched forearm. The large, black head of the hammer makes contact again with her skin, but this time the arm doesn’t give way. This time there is a smash, the sound of wood splintering, stone splitting, and the mallet falls apart in Dr Jones hands._

_The remnants of the shattered mallet hit the floor as Dr Jones recoils in shock, before a delighted laugh escapes the young man’s throat. “Jesus fucking christ!” He exclaims, his excitement escaping his throat and bouncing off the walls of the room. Dr Ralfson feels his heart sinking as Chris opens her fist, the blue returning to her eyes. She beams, her gaze searching him out, pride cracking across her face._

_“Did you see that?” She cries out, “I’m like a superhero!”_

_“Yes,” Dr Ralfson tries to feign happiness, tries to look as if he feels the same pride that she does, tries to pretend to feel something other than terror, “Just like a superhero” He tells her, as if his worst nightmare hasn’t just come true._

* * *

When Billy wakes up all he can smell is the damp, rotten smell of mildew. He stirs on the plastic seat where he has been reclining all night, pain travelling through the stiff muscles at the base of his neck and spine. He is warm, and through a groggy haze he pulls himself upright, seeing a bare, empty mattress sitting at the foot of the wall opposite him. 

Disorientation sets in for a few seconds as he scans the grubby floor and stained walls, and for the briefest of moments cannot remember where he is. Then a face flashes briefly in his mind, the pale skin, the shining, earnest eyes, the wry smile and total disregard for personal safety. He glances down as he pieces together the events of the previous day and realises that he has a large, stained duvet wrapped around him.

He launches himself up from his seat with a start, the duvet dropping to the floor as he realises that he has been an absolute god damn idiot and lost the one thing he had insisted on keeping a close eye on. As anger surges through his body he hears a soft, musical laugh that pierces through his thoughts. As he spins around he sees Crisp standing behind him, leaning against one of the old discarded washing machines, a bright smile on her face.

“What the fuck did you do to me?” He growls. She is standing there in the same stained, white scrubs that they had found her in, but somehow she is also wearing his dark, leather trench coat. He doesn’t remember taking it off, which means at some point she took it off his shoulders while he was asleep. She touched him.

“Jesus, calm down, you were out for the count, I didn’t do anything to you. You tired _yourself_ out.” She sighs with a shake of her head. He then notices she is holding a paper cup in her hand with a generic coffee shop logo on it. She must have found his fucking wallet in his pockets as well. “Here, this should pick you up.” She turns around and lifts up another paper cup from where it sits on the dirty surface of the machine. She reaches out and offers it to him.

“You touched me.” The accusation is low and guttural and Crisp rolls her eyes.

“You’ve got nothing to worry about, I haven’t got cooties, I swear.” She groans and steps forward, eagerly offering him the warm cup of coffee in her hand, “You were exhausted, I was hungry and thirsty and there was nothing here. So yes, I took your jacket and your wallet and took a trip down the street to get us some breakfast. You’re welcome.”

Billy steps forward, his eyes narrow as he tries to decide whether he is thirsty and hungry enough to ignore the fact that this woman not only stole from him, but has the audacity to be so fucking brazen about it. “Where’s the gun?” He snaps.

“On the table, and there are donuts in the bag if you’re peckish.” She says this and gestures behind him. He turns his head and sees his handgun sitting on the metal table, a large paper bag covered with grease stains next to it. He leaps forward and snatches the gun, turning and aiming it at her. She rolls her eyes and takes a swig from one of the paper coffee cups in her hands.

“Oh no!” She sings in a mocking tone, “How will I ever escape now?” She takes another step towards him and Billy feels his breath hitch in his throat. She leans the untouched cup of coffee closer to him again, “Seriously, just take it, you look rough as hell.”

There is a part of him that wants to squeeze the trigger, almost out of spite. He is unsure if this is a power play, if her stealing from him and leaving to go on a breakfast run is meant to reinforce just how unthreatening he is, just how at ease she is in this situation. He still does not know what she is, what she can do, if a bullet would even scratch her skin. She stares at him as he cycles through these thoughts, their eyes locked, and she knows he is thinking the worst.

“Listen _Billy_ ,” She says his name again and all the muscles in his back tense, “You are clearly exhausted, I’m just trying to be nice.”

“Bullshit,” He growls.

“Or it’s all poisoned.” She says with a shrug, walking nonchalantly over to the table and setting down his assigned cup of coffee, “Maybe I’m just _so_ bored I thought I’d waste my chance to escape, and instead come back, offer you a poisoned breakfast, just in the vain hope I can watch you choke to death on it.” She reaches further over, opening the paper bag and pulling out a glazed donut. She takes a bite, before grinning broadly at him.

She is comfortable sitting in his suspicion, she is comfortable having a gun pointed at her. He is unaware of the gratitude that has been slowly unfurling itself in her chest since her transport van crashed on the side of the road. He doesn’t understand that his outright hostility and aggression is comforting when compared to cold indifference.

He also hasn’t a clue why she did not take the opportunity to disappear while he was slumped unconscious in that chair. He watches as she sets down her cup of coffee, balancing the glazed donut on top of it. She shakes his jacket from her shoulders, offering it to him, “I only took it so I didn’t look quite as much like an escaped psychiatric patient when I was buying the coffee.”

He grabs it roughly from her hands, his eyes narrow as he puts down the gun on the table and throws his arms into the sleeves, shrugging the trench coat onto his shoulders. She watches as his jaw clenches, his nostrils flare, his total distrust in her evident in every inch of his body. Regardless, he reaches out, picking up the paper cup from the table, and raises it to his lips to take a swig, “Cheers.”


	5. Whistle Blower

_Those who are born with love_   
_Here's to you trying_   
_And I'm no better than those I judge_   
_With all my suffering_

* * *

Madelyn Stillwell sits behind the desk, her eyes dark with frustration as she peers across at the two people opposite her. Professor Dayton with her crinkled brow and tight lips, her fists clenched in her lap. Dr Ralfson is peering down through his glasses at the floor, a mixture of guilt and shame on his ageing features, “Would either of you care to fill me in on what exactly happened?” Madelyn hisses, and Professor Dayton clears her throat, shooting Dr Ralfson an accusatory look before meeting Madelyn’s eyes.

“The transport was run off the road.” Professor Dayton says, appearing to consider her words carefully, “The two security officers were shot and killed, the driver was killed on impact.” She pulls down on the hem of her pencil skirt. Even in Madelyn’s office, with all the trappings of corporate America, she does not feel safe.

“And CRISPR?” Madelyn asks this question with raised eyebrows, obviously already aware of the answer.

“Gone.” Professor Dayton says this word simply, knowing the gravity of the situation. Madelyn stands up behind her desk abruptly, placing the tips of her fingers on the surface of the wood.

“This is…” She shakes her head, “This is unprecedented. Do you have any idea what this means?”

“We can’t really know yet,” Dr Ralfson’s voice breaks through the room and the two women turn to look at him, “I mean, we don’t know where Crisp is or what happened to her, we don’t know how bad this is yet.”

“Do we not?” Madelyn asks with a disbelieving laugh in her voice, “Not even the Pentagon knows what we really have – what we _had_. If they find out we could lose everything, and that’s the best-case scenario here. We know what the worst-case scenario is, we know what she is actually capable of, we were fucking _counting_ on it.”

Professor Dayton lets out a sigh, “She wasn’t complying.” She tells Madelyn as if this is a small token of reassurance, “It’s why we were moving her in the first place. CRISPR has been a failure for years.”

“I’m sorry, are you trying to tell me you think it’s a good thing that we couldn’t control her?” Madelyn asks incredulously.

“No, I just mean…” Professor Dayton takes a deep breath, “I mean she’s always been a bit averse to hurting people, it doesn’t come naturally.”

“She’s not Homelander.” Dr Ralfson mutters under his breath. He looks up in time to see Madelyn’s face turning a bright shade of pink as her blood pressure climbs. He watches as she circles around her desk, coming to a stop standing over him, her fists clenched so tightly her nails dig into the skin of her palms.

“You’re right, she’s not.” Madelyn snarls, “If she was we would know where the fuck she is right now, we’d know she’d come home when she’s asked, we’d know she would do what she’s fucking told.”

Yeah, and the world would be a lot worse off because of it,” He states. Dr Ralfson’s patience has been wearing down over the years, watching as Vought chipped away at his once bright and engaged pupil leaving nothing but a prisoner, watching as they tried desperately to monopolise on the unfortunate position that she had found herself in. He knows he played a role in her suffering, and his regret mounts with each passing day, “She wouldn’t hurt anyone, she’s harmless.”

“Tell that to Dr Jones.” Professor Dayton murmurs under her breath and Dr Ralfson feels the muscles in his back tighten.

“Fine. Let’s say hypothetically we’re dealing with some de-clawed house cat that got loose…” Madelyn groans, not convinced of the apparent innocuous nature of Crisp’s freedom, “who the fuck left the door open?”

“What do you mean?” Dr Ralfson asks.

“I mean, officially, she doesn’t exist. The CRISPR programme has been off the books since its inception, there are less than a dozen people working on it, fewer who knew about the move, and half of them are now dead.” Madelyn purses her lips into a thin line, her eyes darting between the two medical professionals sitting in front of her, “Someone blew the whistle on this, and the list of names is short.”

“No one would be that stupid.” Professor Dayton counters, an edge to her voice, but the accusation is clear. It lingers in the air above their heads and settles over them like radioactive dust, thick and toxic, “It must have leaked some other way.”

“How?” Madelyn challenges, “All of our records are anonymised, coded and offline. This was deliberate.”

“Why would anyone risk that?” Dr Ralfson asks, his tone is matter of fact but sharp, cutting through the layers of secrets. Madelyn looks at him, her face composed and considered, and she takes a deep breath.

“Nicolas, I need to speak to Martha alone for a minute.” She says as she looks down at her lap to avert her gaze. Dr Ralfson clenches his jaw, tension rising and falling in waves throughout his body. He nods, knowing that he has just rang an alarm but not caring about the fall out. He rises from his seat, smoothing down his shirt and tie.

“I’ll be down the hall if you need me.” He mumbles, but he knows he will not be called back into the room. He strides over to the office door and opens it, stepping outside, immediately feeling the tension slide from his shoulder. He closes the door tightly behind him and lets out a deep, stagnant breath, turning on his heel and putting as much distance between himself and the office as is acceptable.

Behind the door Madelyn turns swiftly to Professor Dayton and her eyes narrow, “How does he know?”

Professor Dayton’s eyes widen with shock, and she hastily shakes her head, her mouth opening and closing as she struggles to respond, “He doesn’t – “, her breath catches in her throat as the realisation dawns on her, “He couldn’t, there’s no way!”

“He knows.” Madelyn says this sternly with no inflection of a question, “I don’t know how, but he definitely fucking knows.”

“He’d have said something.” Professor Dayton is scrambling around inside her skull, trying to piece together the past series of conversations she had with Nicolas, “He’s not one to keep his opinions to himself. If there’s something he’s not comfortable with he’s the first to speak up.”

“I think he did say something, I just don’t think it was to us.” Madelyn pushes herself from the edge of the desk, standing upright next to the seated professor.

“He wouldn’t. He wouldn’t put risk Christiane at risk like that, he’d do anything to keep her safe - ”

“Exactly.” Madelyn hisses, her eyes shining with anger, “He found out. He has to know we were planning on implementing the contingency plan. It’s the only explanation.”

“I didn’t say a word.” Professor Dayton raises her hands in the air, but her eyes are wide and betray her uncertainty. She can’t help but wonder if she let something slip, if something she did or said tipped Nicolas off to the plans they had in place.

“Well, regardless,” Madelyn sighs, walking around her desk and sitting back down in her seat, “We’re in this mess now,” She crosses her legs and leans forward so her elbows rest on the wooden surface in front of her, “And I have an idea for how we can get out of it.”

* * *

_“I don’t want to watch it die.” Chris stands with her arms folded across her chest, her head lowered and her voice soft and strained. Dr Ralfson stands next to her in the stark room, the walls white and overbearing, a steel cage sitting on top of the metal examination table in the centre of the otherwise empty room. Inside the cage, curled up with dark, sprouting, frizzy fur speckling its body, is a small, terrified kitten._

_“That’s not the plan.” Dr Ralfson says deliberately as the kitten lets out a tiny meow. Chris visibly winces at the pathetic sound, the vulnerability of the animal making her skin crawl._

_“Please.” She chokes out. Despite years having passed since she watched the rabbit melt and corrode in front of her, she still has nightmares. She still sees the oozing eye sockets staring back at her when she lies down in bed at night, “Nick, I really can’t.”_

_“You can do this.” Dr Ralfson steps towards her, his white coat glowing under the fluorescent light, his aging skin washed out, his eyes glinting behind his rimless glasses. He reaches out a hand, palm open, facing upwards. Chris cautiously reaches out her own hand, detangling the mess of her own arms around her torso, and grips his tightly. “You are capable of more than you know.”_

_“Is it dying?” She whispers this, and he can feel her hand trembling in his own. He knows how badly she was affected by the first animal experiment they conducted with her, he knowsthe terror and the guilt she felt in its wake, and the last thing he wants to do was make that worse. He nods slowly._

_“Yes, but in a different way.” He says this calmly and coolly as he steps towards the cage. She doesn’t move, instead her arm stretches out as he brings her hand with his. She is too frightened to let go, but too frightened to follow. At seventeen years old she has reverted back to all her childhood fears._

_“I can’t -” Her voice swells with emotion as she shakes her head. Her boots are cemented to the tiled floor, her shoulders shake beneath her red and navy plaid shirt. She can’t even look at the small creature that is pushing it’s face up against the narrow bars._

_“Chris, I wouldn’t have brought this fella here if I didn’t think you could help.” This was a half-truth that came out of Dr Ralfson’s mouth. He believed in her, of course, but Professor Dayton had been pushing for an exploration of Chris’ capacity with other organisms. Desperately wanting to avoid a repeat of the first animal test, Dr Ralfson had agreed to something he knew Chris could handle._

_“It’s so small.” The concern and compassion that seeps out of Chris’ voice breaks his heart, and he sighs. He releases her hand from his grip and walks over to the table. He reaches out, unhooking the latch of the cage and watches as the small kitten finds the door, pushing it open and clambering out onto the examination table._

_The scrawny creature attempts to walk across the smooth metal surface, it’s little legs appearing directionless, sporadic, as the kitten tries to lumber in one direction, failing and toppling over numerous times. Chris watches intently as it lifts its small head and tries to restore balance, and she notices how the kitten’s head trembles constantly while its jaw moves subtly up and down, as if chewing. Dr Ralfson gestures to the animal, “Niemann-Pick disease.”_

_“What?” Chris asks, her eyes still trained on the struggling creature that lets out another soft mewl._

_“It has a genetic condition, it’s not sick in the same way that the rabbit was before. It doesn’t have the same virus as you. It has an inherited condition, means it doesn’t produce a certain enzyme and slowly the cat will lose motor function, its ability to walk, and eventually become paralyzed and die. It is a horrible condition, but it is progressive and slow.”_

_“And you want me to…” Chris starts, taking a cautious step towards the helpless animal that has stopped its futile attempts at walking, and instead sits at the edge of the table, head bobbing slightly up and down._

_“See if you can fix it.” Dr Ralfson says with a shrug, “If you can’t, that’s fine, we can take the little guy away and have him put down humanely. If you can though…” A small smile rises to his lips that he tries to hide, “Then you can have some company in this place.”_

_“I can keep him?” She takes another step towards the small kitten, her eyebrows rising with the tone of her voice. Dr Ralfson’s smile splits across his face._

_“If you can help him,” He adds the qualifier, “He only has a life expectancy of a year or so, and it would be a pretty miserable year.”_

_Chris inhales deeply and her eyes fix on the trembling animal. The kitten stares back her, its little mouth still making the chewing motion, its head – not even big enough to fit in the palm of her hand – is still trembling. She nods sharply and walks towards it, cautiously reaching out her two hands for the small creature. She slides her fingers under the kitten’s front legs and lifts it up. The downy fur against her skin makes it feel as if her heart is swelling as she brings the small bundle up against chest. The kitten tucks itself against the curve of her neck as she uses a hand to cradle its trembling body while the fingers of her other hand gently rubs the fur sprouting behind its oversized ears._

_“Wow,” She whispers softly against the kitten. She feels the kitten vibrating against her skin as it purrs, and she lets out a delighted laugh. Dr Ralfson watches with a mixture of pride and shame, folding his arm over his chest. He sees Chris glance up from where she is nursing the small creature against her clavicle, her eyes swimming with the milky haze that makes her look like a corpse. She smiles, a smile that reaches those dead eyes and gives them a bit more life, “He’s so little.”_

_She can feel him. She can feel the tangle of his DNA, she can feel every cell in his body, she can feel each mistake in transcription, she can feel the cells congested and filled to the brim with lipids. She wants to cry as the kitten’s breath against her skin slows down, as she sifts through and corrects the genetic mutations, as she breaks down the cholesterol that is clogging the nerve cells, disrupting the signalling throughout its nervous system. She feels the trembling slow down, the jaw movements gently cease, and the only movement left is the rise and fall of the kitten’s chest, the hum of its heart beat._

_“Hey little guy,” She whispers. Dr Ralfson watches as the teenager blinks and the swirl of blue returns to her eyes, a small tear staining the skin of her cheek. She pulls the kitten gently away from her chest and brings her face down to look at it. The kitten stares back at her and blinks slowly, before letting out a high pitched, forceful, meow. Chris lets out a noise, a mixture between a laugh and a sob, and her head snaps up to find Dr Ralfson._

_“I think he’s going to be okay,” she whispers. The kitten pushes its face against her, raising a small paw to her skin and unsheathing the small, needle-like claws. She shakes her head as the sharp points dig into her skin, not caring as pain prickles across her clavicle, the kitten kneading her skin affectionately and painfully._

_“Put him down and let’s see,” Dr Ralfson sighs, raising his eyebrows. Chris reluctantly bends down, pulling the kitten out and away from her chest as it lets out a meow of protest. She gently places the creature on the ground next to her feet, and holds her breath as she releases her hands and lets it stand on its own. The kitten moves its head in one smooth motion to look back up at Chris, its eyes narrowing as it lets out another meow, not happy to be on the cold, tiled floor._

_Dr Ralfson watches as the kitten darts towards the bottom of Chris’ legs, a perfectly co-ordinate bundle of energy. It pounces on her ankles, the small claws digging into the material at the hem of her jeans, and pulls itself up onto Chris’ leg. He hears the teenager laugh with pure delight as the kitten scales her left leg with ease, rising to her hip._

_“I think he likes you.” Dr Ralfson says as a smile cracks across his features, feeling tension uncoil in his chest. He wants to call this a miracle, he wants to stand and marvel at Chris, at her potential, at her latent ability to transform the world. But she is so young. She is a child playing with a kitten, and he knows that she needs normalcy more than most. She grins back at him as she plucks the kitten from where it has clawed its way to her stomach, and pulls it up to her face, placing a gentle kiss on the black fuzz that lines its head. “You’re going to have to come up with a name.”_

_“You’re serious then, he’s mine?” Chris tries not to let her excitement show, but there is an ecstatic ring to her voice._

_“Someone’s got to look him,” Dr Ralfson says with a shrug, “From the looks of it he’s going to live a long life.”_

* * *

There is a sharp knock on the door, shattering the silence of the room. Crisp’s head snaps up from where she is sitting cross legged atop a dryer, her eyes darting to the door of the dank basement. The morning is creeping on, and Billy sits opposite with the handgun still cradled in his palm, his beard sprinkled with the remnants of crumbs and sugar as he stuffs a donut into his mouth.

“About time,” Billy grumbles as he pushes himself up, wiping the debris of his breakfast from his shirt. He strides over to the door as Crisp straightens her back, her eyes wide and alert. She pushes herself to the edge of the machine so her feet are dangling above the floor, and watches as Billy reaches out and opens the door.

“Butcher.” A woman’s voice echoes from the hallway and Crisp cranes her neck to see who is there.

“Susan, a pleasure as always.” Billy smirks as the tall, beautiful woman pushes past him into the mildew-soaked room. She is followed by Hughie, Frenchie and Marvin, who pour in behind her, appearing far more reserved and timid than they had the previous day. Crisp hastily pushes herself off the dryer so she can stand up straight in front of the new guest.

“Hi.” She says with a cautious smile, smoothing down her stained scrubs and offering the woman a hand to shake, “I’m Chris," she hesitates and she glances briefly at Billy, "- or Crisp, whatever you prefer.” 

The woman’s presence is intimidating, the blazer that covers her shoulders is smooth, grey and fits her body perfectly. Her chocolate and caramel hair hangs in perfect waves around her face, which wears an expression of urgency. The woman’s eyes scan Crisp as her brow furrows with confusion, before she reaches out and grips her hand tightly with her own, giving it a sharp shake.

“Susan.” She says bluntly, but her eyes narrow and her head swings to look at Billy, “Is this, is this the package?”

“Afraid so.” Billy says nonchalantly, his shoulders shrugging as he dips his hands into the pockets of his trench coat. Susan’s face drops and she snaps her hand back, as if burned, and takes a step away from Crisp.

“Nice to meet you too…” Crisp murmurs.

“Right, what the fuck is the deal with that?” Marvin interjects, gesturing to Susan who is staring wide eyed at Crisp, “Because she’s told us nothing and all we’re dealing with are these bullshit cryptic statements. If we’re dealing with a patient zero situation here we need to know!”

“I’m not sick.” Crisp groans with a roll of her eyes. Susan is still staring intently at her, her eyes scanning the young woman standing in front of her in dishevelled hospital scrubs. Susan considers the uniqueness of her features, her pale skin now smudged with dirt and grease, her unnaturally white blonde hair, unkempt and draped around her shoulders.

“I don’t know much more than you. I was just tipped off that Vought was moving something big and that it needed to be intercepted in order to maintain national security.” Susan confesses, “I thought when they called it compound R that it was just another formulation of the V shit…”

“Well, that’s not entirely honest now is it?” Billy sighs, raising his eyebrows. Susan shoots him a tight-lipped glare, her eyes warning him not to say much more, “Otherwise you wouldn’t be acting like you just shook hands with a fucking Ebola patient.”

“I don’t have Ebola…” Crisp murmurs to herself, knowing no one is listening.

“Look, I didn’t know they were moving a person, I thought it was something completely different.” Susan looks around the room at the men, at their frustrated and angry faces. “I didn’t have much to go on.”

“What do we do with her, huh?” Frenchie spits out, throwing his hand up and gesturing towards Crisp. She folds her arms across her chest and steps backwards to lean against the dryer. This is a conversation she is familiar with, although seeing it play out in front of her is a new experience.

“Nothing.” Susan says decisively, “She’s coming with me, we have the resources to contain something like this.”

“Some _one_.” Crisp hisses, once again to herself. Her eyes cast up and she catches Billy’s gaze as his face tenses with anger.

“She ain’t going nowhere.” Billy grunts, squaring his shoulders and walking purposefully over to Susan. “You seem to be forgetting we’re not your errand boys. We made a deal.” Susan glowers up at him as he stands inches from her, his physical presence looming over her petite frame.

“What deal?” Hughie’s confused voice breaks through the tension of the room.

“I didn’t have all the information –,“ Susan starts but Billy hastily cuts her off.

“Susie Q here maybe didn’t realise that there was a supe sitting in the back of that van, but she did tell me that this compound R shit was a weapon.” A smirk spreads across his face, “And who did you say that weapon could be used against?”

Anger flares behind Susan’s eyes and she looks past Billy to the three other men standing by the doorway, as if she is reluctantly seeking their forgiveness. She knows Billy well enough to know that he would never pull off a clandestine job like this without proper motivation, “I had intelligence that suggested whatever was being moved was some sort of new weaponised biotechnology …” She scrapes her teeth along her lower lip, trying to choose her words carefully “… and it could be used to take down Homelander.”

“Bingo.” Billy raises his hand and points at Crisp, whose eyes are wide with surprise, “She’s mine.”

“This isn’t a fucking negotiation -” Susan snarls. Crisp steps forward, uncrossing her arms and raising her hands.

“Excuse me.” She interjects loudly, and both Susan and Billy’s head swivel sharply to look at her. “I am here. I am here and I am cognitively intact, reasonably intelligent and not a fucking child. You can stop talking around me, like I’m not standing three feet from you. I’m not a weapon, I’m a human being and I’m fucking _confused_.”

“Sorry love, you feeling left out?” Billy sneers, and Crisp narrows her eyes slightly.

“Yes, actually, I am a little.” She bites back, and a smirk spreads across Billy’s face. Crisp’s eyes dart to Susan, “I mean, I don’t even know who you work for!”

Susan straightens the shirt she is wearing and clears her throat, “I work for the CIA, we can help you -”

“The government, right.” Crisp lets out a laugh and shakes her head, “Look you must be delusional if you think I’m going to be anyone else’s guinea pig.”

“That won’t happen, I promise.” Susan says this earnestly, but Crisp shakes her head.

“You can’t promise that.” She says this decisively, without any room for question, and Susan knows she is not wrong. “How did the CIA even find out about me? I don’t think Vought were putting me on their marketing materials.”

Susan hesitates, unsure how much she can confide in this woman. She is at the centre of something Susan feels she might not even understand, and something she definitely has had no say in or control over. Susan clears her throat, the level of distrust is palpable in the room, and she decides the best way forward is transparency, “Anonymous tip.” She states plainly, “There was a leak from Vought, someone contacted us with details of a transport. We were able to verify the general transport details with our CI’s, but the tip was deliberately vague on the content. What they did tell us was that it was a matter of national security, that it was a weapon with bioterrorism capabilities. That if it stayed in Vought’s hands not even the seven would be able to help.” Susan watches as Crisp’s face falls, confusion and fear creeping along the edges, “We didn’t for a second think they were talking about a _person_ …”

“That sound like an accurate dating profile for you love?” Billy interrupts, the word ‘bioterrorism’ ringing in everyone’s ears as he examines Crisp’s features for malevolence. Crisp raises her gaze to find his eyes and shakes her head.

“I would never -” She starts and her voice catches in her throat. Billy is unsure if he’s looking at heartbreak or anger, but the two are sometimes so difficult to detangle.

“All we need to know is what they were planning for you.” Susan says simply, “We might be able to prosecute if we have evidence that Vought were planning to develop or use illegal weapons.”

“You really don’t understand… You don’t tell lab rats why you’re picking them apart, you just do it.” Crisp spits out bluntly, “Vought kept me in the dark about everything that was happening to me, I’d no idea what the point of it all was - I’ve no idea what their plan was for me or if they even had one. Half the time I just assumed the shit they did was for fun.”

“That’s convenient.” Marvin growls from where he is slumped against the wall of the basement, his arms folded over his chest, “She could be the start of the next black death. Vought could have planned this whole thing to release some weird ass virus, cause mass hysteria, make us more dependent on the supes and drive up stock prices.”

“I’m not harbouring an infectious disease.” Crisp says this decisively, cutting through the palpable tension, “I can tell you that much.”

Billy searches Crisp’s face, again trying to distinguish between the fear, anger and sadness. He sees the gaping hole in her story. “Don’t exactly want to take your word for it, love.” Crisp frowns, she had heard the violence in his voice as he referred to her as a weapon, and the last thing she wants is to feed into any destructive agenda. Billy recognises the stubbornness in her features and turns to Susan, “You got a lead on the anonymous tip?”

“No, they covered their tracks, they _really_ didn’t want to be caught.” The exasperation comes through in Susan’s voice as she shakes her head. Crisp feels a gnawing in the pit of her stomach as her thoughts start racing, reliving the sporadic moments of kindness and compassion she’d had throughout her life, the moments when she’d felt like a human being and not a science project.

“If you knew who it was, could you give them protection?” Crisp’s voice is softer, and there is a transparent note of fear to it. Susan turns, and she nods curtly.

“Yes, of course.”

Crisp’s eyes search the faces of the four people in the room. She does not trust them, she does not know them, but she knows Vought. She knows the lengths the company will go to for self-preservation, she knows the suffering, she knows the pain, and how willing they are to inflict it. She inhales sharply, “I think I know who your leak is.”


	6. Fire Test

_Will we ever get away from this place_   
_It's an image that's burned on my chest_   
_For a moment you need me to stay_   
_Cold blooded and drifting away_

* * *

The wind whips harshly against his face as he stands with his arms folded across his chest, his features contorted in frustration and anger as he stands in the steep alleyway behind the laundromat. “You’re fucking joking, right?” Billy laughs, but there is menace behind his eyes. Susan is staring down at her cellphone, her fingers moving furiously across the screen as she hears the disbelief in his voice.

“We can’t keep her here, we have to keep her moving.” She says this absentmindedly, not paying too much heed to Billy’s anger.

“That’s not the Joke.” His voice is becoming tighter as he watches her gaze trained on the screen in front of her, transfixed. “Susan!”

She sighs, rolling her eyes as she slides her phone into her jacket pocket. She raises her eyebrows and shrugs, “You’re the one who was so desperate to keep her close by.”

“I didn’t want you disappearing the kid into one of your black holes, but I ain’t a babysitter!” Billy gestures at the red Honda accord that sits behind him on the damp concrete. It is the type of car that would blend into any lane of traffic without second look, the only strange thing being the pale ethereal woman sitting in the front seat, her eyes pouring over the radio controls.

“You’re the next best thing.” Susan says with another shrug, watching as rage pours into Billy’s features, “Look, she doesn’t need a babysitter. All I’m asking is for you to get her to the next safe house. By then I should have heard back from my CI’s with an address for this informant… and then you can go pay him a visit.”

“Alone?” Billy spits this out incredulously, nodding to Marvin, Frenchie and Hughie who linger next to Susan’s black SUV. “That’s fucking overkill.”

“Is it?” Susan narrows her eyes and folds her arms across her chest, “We don’t know what she _is_ yet, we don’t know if she’s carrying a dangerous pathogen. She says she isn’t but she could be lying. These boys are going to go into quarantine until you get some answers.”

“And what about me? You don’t care if I get sick?” Billy grunts.

“Oh, poor baby, did I hurt your feelings?” She smirks, “You’ve been with her all night, you’ve been far more exposed.” She could still see the annoyance on his face, “I’m not really worried. I don’t actually think she’s carrying anything. I believe her, I think there’s a much bigger story to this than some escaped contagious patient. But we have to play this safe, we have no idea what we’re dealing with.”

“Easy for you to say.” Billy grumbles, taking a step back towards the car. Susan cocks her head to one side, letting out a short sigh.

“She seems like a sweet kid, play nice.” Susan chastises as she retrieves her cell phone from her jacket pocket. Billy rolls his eyes and turns on his heel.

“She’s fucking creepy is what she is.” He mutters under his breath as he approaches the drivers side. He opens the door and lands into the seat, the whole car shaking with the momentum of his weight. He slams the door shut behind him and glances over at the young woman whose eyes are still trained on the radio, her hand hovering over the buttons uncertainly.

“Right missus,” Billy grunts as he turns the keys in the ignition, the engine revving as the car springs to life. Her blue eyes dart to look at him, “Let’s get you somewhere a bit more comfortable.”

“Are you my designated minder then?” Crisp asks, her voice light and unassuming, but there is a hint of tiredness to it. Billy smiles at her sarcastically.

“Ain’t it your lucky day?” He mutters. Crisp’s face softens even more as sympathy rises in her chest.

“I’m sorry.” The sincerity is clear in her voice, and it automatically puts Billy on edge. His eyes dart towards her cautiously as the car speeds out the bottom of the alley onto the road, pulling seamlessly into traffic.

“What you got to be sorry for?” There is an accusation in his voice. Her seeming total passivity to the situation she has found herself in is making his skin crawl. She shrugs and looks out the car window, her eyes wide as she soaks in the silhouette of the tall buildings, climbing towards the overcast sky.

“I’m sorry that you’ve been burdened with me.” She sighs and leans back in the seat, her eyes still admiring the passing cityscape, “I know I wasn’t what you expected and I know this can’t be easy.” Billy’s eyes narrow as they flick between the road in front of him and the strange woman reclining next to him. She appears lost in her thoughts, but the apology feels heartfelt, and it is jarring and uncomfortable.

Billy clears his throat, unsure of how to respond, and a heavy silence falls over them. Crisp barely notices the tension that has stiffened the muscles throughout Billy’s entire body. She is too busy watching the changing landscape around her, admiring the red brick buildings, the bustling streets filled with strangers who she never had the opportunity to meet. She looks up at the sky and the angry clouds above her make her hold her breath. She is moving, she is moving through a world that she had largely forgotten, that she had only pieced together through stories, books, television and film. She feels tears sting the corner of her eyes as the colours and noise and difference overwhelms her. She is no longer surrounded by white, clinical walls, and it feels both brilliant and terrifying.

She blinks back tears and straightens up in the seat, taking in a deep breath. Billy grits his teeth, “It ain’t your fault, kid.” He spits this out reluctantly, and Crisp’s head spins round, taken aback by the glimmer of compassion. She watches his face as he stares out at the road, navigating his way through the traffic. He can feel her eyes on him, searching for a clue about what he is thinking. He adjusts his grip on the steering wheel, her gaze making his skin prickle.

“What have they done to you?” Crisp’s voice again strikes through the tension. She knows the anger that radiates from Billy is too focused, too deliberate to be formed from principle alone. She watches as he thinks over an answer, knowing exactly what she is asking of him. He clears his throat.

“Crispy, that’s a long story.” He mutters, his eyes not leaving the road. Crisp nods, looking away.

“It always is with them.” She says knowingly, leaning back in her seat, her wide eyes fixed on the street passing in a blur beside her, marvelling in her relative freedom.

* * *

_Nicolas feels as if he will vomit, his skin is pale and sunken as he stares at heavy, white metal door in front of him. He places his hand against the cold surface, taking a deep breath into his lungs, hoping his fear and disgust is not evident on his face. He reaches down and keys a number into the pad above the handle, hearing the beep and click that tells him the door is unlocked. He turns the handle and it swings open._

_“Morning!” He says this brightly as he steps through the threshold. Inside the room is a bizarre mix of clinical walls, white tiles, and the mess of teenage years. A black orb is tucked into one of the corners of the ceiling, an ever-watching eye. Chris sits cross legged on a bed pushed up against the far wall. The linens are dark, purple and black, and above the bed is a lopsided Nirvana poster pinned against the stark white wall. She looks up from the book that she is holding aloft, over the sleeping, purring cat that is curled up between the folds of her legs._

_“Good morning.” She returns his greeting and sets the book down to one side, but doesn’t move._

_“You ready to get started?” He asks, trying to mask the fear in his voice. She furrows her brow, lost in a moment of confusion._

_“What’s today again?” She asks, and her hand wanders down to her lap, finding the notch behind the cat’s ear._

_“More testing.” This is all he is willing to say, what he has been instructed to say, but Chris doesn’t question it. She shrugs, looking back down at the sleeping cat. She knows that Nicolas is uncomfortable with the testing, and she can sense the tension between him and every other member of staff when the time comes. She is unaware of what goes on behind the scenes, she doesn’t even really understand the point of it, but one thing she understands perfectly is that Nicolas cares for her her. She knows her pain can devastate him, and the nature of the testing, the repeated broken bones, the bruises, the constant bone marrow aspirations, makes her pain inevitable._

_“It’ll be okay.” She purrs this at the sleeping animal in her lap, but the comment is directed towards Nicolas. She has yet to be pushed to a point where she is uncomfortable, where the potential of pain and suffering outweighs her curiosity. But she is naïve, painfully naïve, with her entire world restricted to a series of white corridors and rooms. She doesn’t question whether the people around her have her best interests at heart. Nicolas knows this, he knows she is unaware of the content of strained conversations behind closed door, he knows she is blissfully oblivious to the plans Vought has drawn up for her._

_“I’m afraid Louis will have to stay.” He tells her, and she frowns. The small cat rolls over against her legs, his small paws dangling above his exposed tummy._

_“I’ll be right back little fella.” She whispers, reluctantly moving her legs from beneath the cat, who lets out a meow of protest as the warmth slips from beneath him. She slides from the bed, as if trying her best not to disturb him, and leans down to kiss him gently on the top of his head. She straightens up, wiping down her bare legs to watch the cat hair spill down onto the white tiled floor._

_As Nicolas watches her walk towards him, he feels a pang of nostalgia deep in his chest. She is turning into a young woman, fast approaching eighteen with long legs and high cheekbones. It hurts for him to see, knowing that her entire childhood and adolescence has been spent as science experiment, that he was responsible for that. And it hurts even more to know that this is her future._

_“You okay?” She asks, her voice soft as she comes to a stop next to him. He catches himself, his thoughts miles away, with the little girl who would cry out and hold his hand when she was scared._

_“Yeah it’s just - ” He smiles at her, but the sadness is evident and causes Chris to frown with concern, “Todays test is…” He sucks air into his lungs, trying to compose himself, “Please know I tried to convince them it was unnecessary.”_

_“Nick, I got this.” She tells him this with every confidence, assuming this is his usual trepidation that comes with threat of her breaking bones._

_The pair move out of the room and through a winding maze of white corridors, all looking almost identical. She looks out of place with her loose, faded grey t-shirt and denim shorts, strutting next to Nicolas with his shirt, tie and white coat. This is her home though, and she is still just a teenager girl trying to figure out who she is and who she is going to be._

_They turn the corner, but the sight that greets them in the next corridor stops Chris in her tracks. Nicolas continues a few feet before realising that she is hesitating. He turns back, and he sees the apprehension in her face. In front of them are two people dressed head to toe in silver suits, every inch of their body covered with this reflective surface with the exception of a black visor across their eyes. Professor Dayton stands next to them in her white lab coat, and shoots a small smile at Chris._

_“Christiane, it’s okay, come over here,” Her voice is musical as she holds out her hand, beckoning her over. Nicolas walks back and places a hand on Chris’ shoulder, in an attempt to be reassuring._

_“What’s going on?” She asks quietly as she cautiously approaches Professor Dayton, her eyes never leaving the two people in their metallic suits._

_“It’s just a new test.” Professor Dayton says casually, and Chris lets out a nervous laugh._

_“What the hell are you testing today?” She asks. She is unnerved by the black panels obscuring the faces of these two strangers._

_“The same thing as usual, volitional control of regenerative capacity and physical constitution.”_

_Chris nods slowly, what this has always translated into was breaking bones, something she could do in her sleep. She watches as one of the unidentified figures reaches over and opens the white door set into the wall, and steps to the side to allow her to enter first._

_“We’ll be right next-door Chris,” Nicolas calls out, “we’ll be watching the entire thing. You’ll see us through the window - you’re not alone.”_

_Chris looks back at Nicolas, but before she can answer Professor Dayton steps forward and places a hand between her shoulder blades to encourage the teenager in through the door, “Christiane is a big girl, she knows what she’s doing.”_

_Chris nods slowly, and takes a step forward into the room. It is not the usual floor to ceiling expanse of white that she is used to, instead the floor is made of a spongy black material, the walls lined with grey cement. She swallows nervously as she slowly walks into the centre of the room, noting the window to her left. There is a loud slam and she spins around on her heel, seeing the two strangers in their gleaming metallic suits standing next to the now-locked door._

_“Right, so what happens next?” She feels nervous, and her eyes drift to a large red container that sits next to the feet of one of the strangers. She clears her throat and her head swivels to look back at the window, seeing Professor Dayton appear behind the transparent material, closely followed by Nicolas, whose eyes remain firmly directed towards the ground._

_“Christiane,” Professor Dayton leans forward, her voice coming out through deeply implanted speakers, “This might hurt a little.”_

_“What?”_

_She smells it first. It is strong, making her nostrils sting and her eyes water. She frowns, and as she turns her head to follow the scent she feels it. She feels it land on her head, on her face, the pungent liquid splashing over her entire body, drenching her hair, saturating her clothes, slick against every inch of exposed skin. She clamps her eyes shut, stumbling backwards as the stranger in the metallic suit holds up and shakes the red canister, throwing the viscous fluid over her. She splutters, the taste is horrific as droplets land in her mouth. She finds her footing long enough to raise her hands and wipe the fluid from her eyes._

_The stranger tosses the now empty plastic container to one side and takes several steps backwards, away from the pool that is slowly spreading around Chris on the dark floor. The other person steps forward, and that is when the horrifying realisation sinks into Chris’ consciousness._

_“No!” She gasps, and raises a hand out, as if this is enough to stop them, her eyes wide with desperation. The small gas ignitor is held out from the stranger’s body, the flame flickering threateningly. She turns to look at the two medics behind the window, the panic starting to overwhelm her. “Please! You don’t have to do this, this is insane!”_

_She watches as Professor Dayton leans over to the microphone, her face blank, her voice calm and measured, “You can cope with this, I know you can. Just do what you always do.”_

_“This is too much!” Chris can hear her heart pounding, fear saturating every pore. There are tears in her eyes, “You’re going to kill me!”_

_“Jones.” Professor Dayton’s voice is curt, ignoring the pleas of the girl in front of her, “Drop it.”_

_“Don’t!” Chris’ head spins round to face the man in the aluminium suit._

_She knows now that these bizarre outfits are thermal protection, to keep them safe as she is engulfed in flames. She knows that she wasn’t forewarned because they knew she wouldn’t come willingly. She spots the fire extinguisher propped up against the concrete wall behind the aluminium clad figures, and she realises they are not certain she will survive this. She watches as the man’s grip loosens on the ignitor, and it falls, pulled by gravity towards ground. As she watches the small flame kiss the pool of gasoline the fear provides her with a profound sense of clarity. She watches the fire eat its way through the floor in front of her, and she knows she is not control. As it reaches her legs and tracks up the bare legs, searing through her skin, she knows that her life is not her own._

_The fire rips through her flesh, following the trails of gasoline across her skin, engulfing her clothing. She has never felt pain like this before, deep, bubbling, exploding pain. She opens her mouth and lets out a scream, involuntary and primal as the flames lick her abdomen, climbing her chest and her arms. She watches her own body disintegrating as her face is submerged in the flames, her white hair blazing as the strands spark and turn to dust._

_She tries to scream again, but as she sucks oxygen into her lungs, the fire follows. Her mouth is searing, her throat is scorched before she realises what is happening. She feels the alveoli crackle and pop as the heat blisters her lungs. She can’t get air, and she falls to the ground, a human bonfire. She feels her muscles contract, the skin pulling and tightening on her limbs as her fingers curl and her limbs twist inwards, the heat pushing her into the foetal position. The pain is disappearing as heat burns through the depth of her skin, destroying her nerve endings. Every inch of her is burning, the fire consuming her, crackling angrily in the smoke-filled room._

_She can still smell the rancid scent of burnt fat and charred hair as the fire eats away at her, and she wonders why she is still conscious, she wonders why she can still feel her heart pounding in her chest and feel her shrivelled lungs struggling for air. She wonders how long it will take for the fire to burn out. She wonders how long it will take for her to die._

_Dr Ralfson watches with his face aghast from the other side of the thick window, protecting him from the scent of Chris’ cooking flesh. He sees her on the ground with her back to them, her legs contracted up to her chest. He chokes out a sob, noticing that his face is stained with the salty water of his tears. The minutes that have passed have allowed the fire to eat its way through what fuel it can find, and he watches it gradually dying down, revealing the full thickness burns all across Chris’ body. The material of her t-shirt and shorts have vanished, with a few remnants welded into the oozing, red flesh where her skin used to be._

_“Jesus Christ.” He hears Professor Dayton whisper under her breath. The destruction of the child is horrifying to look at, nothing left but a wizened, oozing silhouette._

_“Are you fucking happy now? I told you this was too much!” Dr Ralfson snarls, his teeth bared. The guilt, the grief, and the deep shame threaten to overwhelm him, and he curls his hands into fists at his side, trying to stop himself from hurting Professor Dayton, from hurting himself._

_One of the men in the thermal radiation suits steps forward with a fire extinguish in his grasp. He disconnects the black nozzle and points it at the smouldering, charred figure of Chris. He pulls the lever, covering the red, raw flesh with bright white foam, as if it might ease the pain that just ripped through the poor girl’s body._

_“Now what, what’s your big fucking plan?” The pain in Dr Ralfson’s voice is vicious and deep, and Professor Dayton turns slowly to look at him, at his wild red eyes and stained cheeks, “You fucking burnt the child to death.”_

_“Doctor.“ The coldness to Professor Dayton’s voice is unnerving, she takes a deep breath, “ **If** she is dead then you know what is next. Necropsy. We still have questions that need answered.”_

_“If she is dead – we just watched her die.”_

_“We watched her burn,” Professor Dayton turns slowly to look back at the body in the floor in the other room, “doesn’t mean we watched her die.” Dr Ralfson stares at her in disgust, his anger throbbing in his temples as he follows her gaze through the thick glass barrier to the other room._

_He thinks his eyes are paying tricks on him at first. The black and wizened body is covered in a thick dusting of stark white foam, the silence and stillness heavy in the room. He thinks he’s imagining it when he sees the foam rise slightly. When it sinks down and rises again he wonders if there is ventilation in the room, if there is a draft causing the light and airy foam to shake loose. It happens a third time and his eyes narrow, stepping closer to the glass. It looks like breathing. Shallow and barely visible, but breathing._

_There is another rise of the white foam, this time shuddering and exaggerated, an unmistakeable intake of breath. He holds his own breath as the mound of foam moves, the white sludge sliding off and onto the ground. He watches as her arms pry away from her sides, reaching out the brace against the blackened floor. Her legs pull down from her chest, an audible grunt of effort echoing through the room as she fights against the tight contractures of her muscles. Dr Ralfson feels his eyes widening in a mix of total awe and deep, joyous relief as, with her back still to them, she pushes herself up into a seated position._

_Her skin is changing in front of their eyes, a dance of pink flesh, exposed bone and charred skin. He can see the blackened necrotic tissue fall from her, like leaves from a tree, healthy, pink granulating tissue appearing underneath. She manages to get her feet beneath her and push herself up into an unsteady standing position, the expanse of her back a dazzling spectacle of rapidly changing tissue. Red, muscular flesh being enveloped with layers of yellow, creamy fat and smooth alabaster skin. He can see that her entire scalp has been incinerated, the skin having melted away to expose her skull._

_She takes an unsteady step to her left but pauses, holding out her arms cautiously, unsure of her balance as she waits to feel more stable. Dr Ralfson can see the skin on her scalp moving and growing. The layers build up and stretch to cover the exposed bone and raw flesh. He sees her slowly turn her head as hair starts to sprout from the newly formed skin on her scalp, tumbling down around her shoulders._

_Chris turns around fully to look through the window where Professor Dayton and Dr Ralfson are standing with eyes wide and mouths hanging open in awe. She takes in another deep, shuddering breath, feeling the alveoli in her lungs flowering and soaking up the oxygen. She can feel anger and tension sear through the muscles in her back as she stands in the remnants of her burnt skin._

_Dr Ralfson stares back at her white, translucent eyes, barely noticing the anger behind them. Instead he is transfixed, captivated by the expanse of Chris’ bare, pale skin stretched over her body. There is not a single mark on her, no evidence of the horrific experience she just went through. He has no words, no way to communicate the wonderment he is feeling._

_“You need a bit more faith in your girl.” Professor Dayton’s voice cuts through his thoughts and brings him back to the world. “She’s going to change the world.”_

* * *

“Home sweet home.” Billy murmurs, twisting the keys in the lock of the stained apartment door. Crisp stands next to him in the narrow corridor, her arms folded over her front as she examines the peeling wallpaper and the mud coloured carpet that lines every inch of the building. The door swings open to reveal more of the same walls, this time partitioning a living room that consists of cream furniture with sporadic dark blemishes on their woven fabric. Billy steps back, holding out his arm as if inviting her in, “Ladies first.”

She throws him a smirk and steps inside, her eyes darting around the basic studio. A wire bedframe in one corner has a heaped duvet sitting atop a mattress, a make-shift kitchenette with a filthy sink and grimy hotplate. She strides across the floor, heading straight for the tall window that is set into the wall opposite. Crisp peers out, seeing the cavernous pit of a street beneath her, dotted with shrivelled trees that are meant to act as some sort of reminder of nature in this urban sprawl. She scans up and looks at the tall building opposite, seeing the lace curtains and cotton blinds drawn down in each of the windows. She presses her forehead against the cool glass and allows a small smile to materialise on her face.

“Susan’s outdone herself this time…” She hears Billy murmur from behind her and she slowly turns to look over her shoulder. He is standing in the narrow entry way, rooting around in a small cupboard implanted into the wall. He pulls out a large duffel bag, throwing it on the floor next to his feet, “Not much better than that fucking basement.”

“It’s not that bad…” Crisp murmurs, glancing around at the faded paintings of flowers that are hanging in grotty frames on each of the walls.

“You gotta raise your standards Crispy,” Billy grunts as he kicks the duffel bag across the floor towards her, “This place is a shit hole.”

Crisp shrugs, her eyes once again tracing back to the window, finding the pale grey sky stretching above the buildings. She feels her heart start to race at the suggestion of how expansive the world is out here, “Could be worse.” She whispers to herself.

There is a shrill beep, and Billy reaches into the pocket of his trench coat to retrieve his phone. He looks down at the screen, his brow furrowed with concentration as he reads the small words lighting up in his palm. He falls silent and Crisp clears her throat, nodding towards the bag that sits in the empty space between them.

“What’s that for?” She asks, and Billy’s head snaps up, his brow furrowing further.

“Change of clothes, you look like a mental patient. You gotta change,” He tells her bluntly, before sliding his phone back into his pocket. “And I gotta go.”

Crisp nods again slowly, understanding, pursing her lips together, “Billy,” She says his name quietly as he moves towards the open door, and he hesitates to look back at her, “Be nice.”

“I ain’t promising anything.” He curtly replies.

“He’s one of the good ones.” There’s a pain to her voice which Billy chooses to ignore. Instead he shrugs, and strides towards the door.

“No such thing.”


	7. Critical

_Pale eyes, ice cold  
What has become of you?  
  
All the things, you did  
That you can not undo_

* * *

_"I'm not doing it." Chris sits in the metal chair with her arms folded across her chest, her jaw clenched in antagonistic defiance. In front of her sits a large steel cage, and her eyes are trained unflinchingly on its occupant._

_"Chris, please." She is not used to hearing Nicolas plead with her, he has always been the one to try and pace her, try and get her to slow down. But today his role is different, and she purses her lips together tightly and shakes her head._

_"You can't make me." There is a tone of a laugh to her voice, betraying her disbelief at the situation she is in. She is exercising her choice for the simple reason that she can, a rare luxury that she has slowly been learning to relish. She looks at the dark eyes that stare back at her from behind the metal bars, the fear reflecting back is almost human and she knows that despite the fact she is on the other side of the steel cage, they are both in the same position._

_"It's just like with Louis, I promise." Nicolas steps towards her in the vast white room, kneeling down next to the seat so he is just below her eye level, "This guy has a congenital heart defect, you give him a tune up and he'll be right as rain." Nicolas tries to smile at her, as a form of reassurance, but the glare he is met with causes it to falter and eventually drop from his features._

_"That's not the point." Her voice is steady and assured. Nicolas sighs, he knows this, he knows that since the fire test Chris has changed. Refusing tests, refusing sample collections, refusing to engage with the researchers. He knows it is punishment for what they have done to her, he knows she is exercising the one miniscule aspect of control she has._

_"I know you're angry with us, I know we hurt you, but don't let this fella suffer because of our sins." He watches as a wry smile crosses Chris' lips, and it unnerves him._

_"Don't pretend that this is altruism. What do you think is going to happen once I do this? Are you expecting me keep a fucking chimpanzee as a pet?" She raises her eyebrows, nodding sharply towards the chimp trapped in the steel cage, "Or were you hoping I wouldn't ask what you're going to do to him once we were finished?"_

_"Chris -"_

_"I'm not going to be a part of this anymore Nick." She shakes her head, her gaze returning to her lap, "I thought this was all meant to be something... positive. You had me believing this was medical research, like I was going to be some sort of cutting-edge doctor." She lets out a laugh, but it is sad and laced with shame, "That was never going to happen. That was never what this was about. I don't know what your end game is but it's not fucking helping people, that's for sure."_

_"Of course, it is," Nicolas sounds like he almost believes this himself._

_"What have we done that is helping anyone, huh?" Chris turns in her chair so she can face Nick, leaning forward, as if she knows that there's a camera buzzing in the corner, as if she doesn't want her every word and thought recorded for prosperity. Her voice drops, "I have been held here, trapped here, since I was a child, no one even knows I exist and what has that been for? What have I got to show for the past ten years of my life apart from a fucking pet cat?"_

_Nicolas feels his heart break as she hisses these questions at him. Questions that he has been acutely aware of with each passing day. Questions he has been asking himself since Chris arrived in the facility in her blood-stained summer dress. He had watched her grow and adapt and flourish in the confines of an experimental laboratory, and he had been kidding himself this entire time thinking this was healthy, think this was making her happy, "Chris, I'm sorry, I just wanted what was best for you -"_

_"No." The word is loaded with venom as she spits it from her mouth, "No you did not. You set me on fucking fire and watched me burn. How was that the best for me?"_

_There is a loud scrape as she pushes her chair back and abruptly rises to her feet. She gestures towards the chimpanzee in the cage, its fingers laced with the bars as it peers out at the pair of them. "I'm no more than a lab animal to you and you know that." She turns and marches towards the door. Nick straightens up and darts over to her as she raises a fist to knock loudly against the door, signalling to anyone who will listen that she wants out._

_"Chris, please," He reaches out and grabs her by the shoulders, spinning her round to meet his eyes, "Just do this one test, I swear, I wouldn't ask you if I didn't think it was necessary."_

_She stares up at him, at the man who has been her protector this entire time, her mentor, her teacher. She hates that she does not trust him right now, that her one source of stability has been taken from her, "It's not one test though, there'll be another one and another one and each time you'll tell me how important it is - This is just your job. This is what you're being paid to do." She shakes out of his grip as the door slowly swings open next to them, "I don't think any of this is necessary. I think it just threatens your profit margin."_

_Nicolas feels as if his breath has been stolen from him. His arms fall to his sides as he watches her march through the door, anger written all over her face she storms past Professor Dayton who holds it open for her, "Good afternoon to you too, Christiane," She calls after her as the young woman disappears down the hallway. She turns to Nicolas, "I told you Das Kapital was a bad idea for a birthday present."_

_"I tried." Nicolas murmurs as he steps towards the doorway. Professor Dayton nods slowly, her eyes travelling to the caged chimpanzee._

_"No luck?" The tone of her voice reveals her lack of surprise, and Nicolas glares in her direction and nods reluctantly._

_"She's hurt, Martha." He tells her, hoping to excavate some remnant of compassion in her mind, "We've devastated her, she's not going to comply."_

_"That's a shame." Professor Dayton sighs, "I was hoping for a fresh specimen, it would have made things a lot easier."_

_"You need to speak to Madelyn, she can't expect you to follow through on this."_

_"Nicolas, listen to me." She ushers him out of the room and closes the door behind him, the pair of them standing in the deep white of the corridor, "We have been making progress at a snail's pace and it is clear that we're stalling after the fire test. If we can't get her to comply with the research, then we have no other choice. Madelyn is on a razors edge, we're just a drain on money and resources at this point and she's ready to shut this place down. If we can't put Christiane to use then we need to figure out a way expand this research beyond her."_

_"This is cruel." Nicolas growls._

_"We're not here to be kind." Professor Dayton's voice is sharp, "We're here to understand this virus and put it to use. We have to understand how this virus works, how it interacts with other organisms - and our one viable host isn't playing ball anymore."_

_"We just need to give her time, we need to step back -"_

_"We can't afford to step back! This isn't a charity, we're not here to hold her hand." Professor Dayton raises her hand to her face, pinching the bridge of her nose and closing her eyes as she attempts to keep her voice level and frustration from bubbling over, "You have to stop looking at her like she's your kid, that's not working anymore. She's a product. And she's failing. We need a new approach."_

_"I don't think we'll be able to come back from this," Nicolas sees her frustration, he understands that the CRISPR programme had been chronically underfunded and neglected for years, mostly because attenuating the virus for safe transmission had been a spectacular failure, and relying on a child to carry the weight of painful, invasive and cruel testing had its own limits; the threshold had definitively been reached when they burnt her alive. "She'll never trust us again."_

_"She doesn't need to trust us." Professor Dayton spits out, turning on her heel to leave, "She just needs to do what she's fucking told."_

**** ****

* * *

The moon glints off the windows set into the wood of the front door as Dr Ralfson walks up the gravel path, his face twisted in a scowl as he fumbles with the keys in his hands. His mind is racing, as it has been all day, with images of Chris flashing intrusively behind his eyes, all the possibilities of where she might be and who she might be with. The red-brick house in front of him is modest in size, the garden sprawling out around it but contained at the edges of tall trees and bushes. He slides his key into the lock and the door swings open, revealing a dark corridor, the moonlight offering some illumination on the panelled walls and rich floor boards.

As the door closes behind him he feels his body crumple, his weight pulling him down against the wall to his left. He feels emotion swim through his body, erupting at the base of his throat, making it impossible to breathe. He wants to cry, he wants to wallow in his grief and guilt as he thinks about the child he raised, the things he allowed to happen to her when she was still so young and so trusting. He catches himself before he lets the sobs escape, scared they won’t stop. He raises his hands to his face, removing his glasses and rubbing his eyes harshly before blinking back the tears that had managed to slide into the folds of his skin. He inhales sharply, pushing himself from the wall as he straightens up, taking deliberate steps down the hall and turning into the study to his left. He reaches out in the darkness to find the light switch.

“Evening doctor.” A rough voice laced with a strong cockney accent rumbles from the corner as light floods the room. Dr Ralfson spins sharply, his eyes wide with shock as he finds a stranger sitting behind his desk. The man has a thick, dark head of hair with a matching beard, a smirk gracing his lips as he nonchalantly raises an arm and reveals a handgun. “Sorry to drop in on you like this, but I assumed you don’t do house calls.”

“Who – Who are you?” Dr Ralfson splutters this out, his heart rate climbing. Immediately he thinks this is it, this is the end, this is Vought’s answer to anyone who steps out of line, “Are you here to kill me?”

The man shrugs as if he’s just been offered a cup of tea, and leans forward onto the desk. He glances at the gun for a moment contemplatively, “I think we’ve got a mutual friend, doc.” He rises from the chair, motioning to it with a curt nod, “Might wanna take a seat for this”

Dr Ralfson feels as if he is going to vomit all over himself, his stomach twisting uncomfortably in his abdomen. He raises his hands, his eyes trained on the weapon in this strangers’ hand, “I haven’t done anything -” He starts to protest but the man rolls his eyes, this time motioning with the gun.

“I ain’t got all night, sit the fuck down.” The man growls and Dr Ralfson can hear his heart pounding in his ears. He shuffles across the room, his eyes never leaving the barrel of the gun as he skirts his desk and takes an uneasy seat in the chair. “That wasn’t too hard now, was it?” The man spits out sarcastically as his free hand starts to rummage in the pocket of his trench coat. He retracts his hand and reveals a thick roll of duct-tape.

“Hey!” Dr Ralfson starts to protest as the man strides over to him, ripping the end of the tape free with his teeth, his other hand still clamped around his gun, “I’m not going to cause any problems -” He promises as the man reaches over and sticks the end of the roll to the material of his shirt. He starts haphazardly winding the roll around Dr Ralfson’s body, building layers and layers that keep his arms pinned to his side and his back bound tightly against the chair.

“That’s what they all say,” The man murmurs as he decides the thick, broad wrapping of duct-tape is secure enough and tears the roll free, placing it back in his pocket, “Afraid I’m not stupid enough to listen.”

“Who are you?” Dr Ralfson chokes out, the tape is pressing down against his chest, making it difficult to take a deep breath.

“Billy Butcher.” The man leans against the edge of the desk, and places the gun down carefully on its surface. “Please to make your acquaintance.”

“What do you want?” Dr Ralfson’s voice wavers as he finally manages to tear his eyes from the weapon back up to the man’s face.

“I want to have a chat.” He says this casually, his eyes roaming around the room, soaking in the high book cases that line the wall, “about your mate.”

“Who?” Dr Ralfson hisses between gritted teeth. The panic has spread to every inch of his body, the restriction of the duct-tape not helping the trapped feeling that is making his head spin.

“You know, your mate.” Billy sighs, turning back to him, “Blonde, skinny, white as a fucking sheet. Sexy in a ‘freshly dead’ kinda way?”

The panic that was settling in Dr Ralfson’s veins turns and sours into a seething cascade of anger. Immediately his body jolts, almost without realising, as heat rises up from under his shirt collar, “If you’ve touched a hair on her head so help me god -” The chair almost leaps off the floor as he contorts his body to reach for Billy, the duct-tape holding strong. “I will kill you.”

“Whoa,” Billy raises his hands and lets out a chuckle, amused by the sudden change in the previously meek doctor, “Listen doc, I’m just the sucker that did the jailbreak - I ain’t laid a finger on typhoid Mary.”

Dr Ralfson can still hear the blood surging in his ears, his face flushed bright red with anger. His chest heaves as he tries to stop his mind swimming with all the horrific things that may have happened to Chris in his absence, what this man may have done to her, “You better not have.”

“From what I understand,” Billy leans forward, his eyes darkening, “Anything I try to do to her - she could fuck me up much worse if she wanted to.” The statement hangs in the air for second, and Dr Ralfson looks away. A different kind of fear starts to unfurl in his chest.

“What’s happened?” He asks this question quietly. Billy’s eyes narrow and he shakes his head.

“That’s not how this works, I’m the one with the gun, you’re the human burrito – You answer the questions.” Billy leans in even closer, “What the fuck _is_ she?” Dr Ralfson clears his throat, weighing up the damage already done with the damage that is yet to come.

“It’s complicated.” Dr Ralfson whispers and again Billy shakes his head.

“It ain’t. Either fess up, or I put a bullet in your head, go home to your little ghost and make her wish I’d never plucked her out of that ditch we found her in.” Billy smiles, a bright, malicious grin, “I mean that ain’t complicated. That’s easy peasy lemon squeezy.”

“ _She’s_ complicated then.” Dr Ralfson corrects himself as he glowers up at his captor.

“Fine, let’s start from the beginning – how’d she end up at Vought?” Billy asks, frustration starting to ripple through his body. Dr Ralfson looks down at his lap. He knows he is not in the position to be keeping Chris’ secrets, he had made his decision days ago, silence was no longer an option. He knew that once he made the decision to blow the whistle on Vought he had sealed his fate, and for some reason when that whistle was blown this was the man who answered that call. He has to believe she is in some way better off in this strangers’ company than in the clutches of Vought.

“Her parents worked in the R and D department.” Dr Ralfson starts, his voice low and steady, “You need to understand that Vought operates far more like a weapons manufacturer than anything else. The Seven are obviously the jewels in their crown but they’re constantly trying to innovate. And Chris’ parents were… exceptional scientists.”

“If this is the compound V shit, that ain’t a secret -”

“No,” Dr Ralfson hisses, “Compound V was just the start. It does the job but it’s messy. It’s non-specific. You have no idea what you’re going to end up with. Vought was pouring money into far more complex and dangerous methods, gene sequencing and editing, novel bacterial and viral agents. Chris was…” Dr Ralfson inhales sharply, the images of the blood-soaked child still ever present in his mind. He could remember her sitting on his examination table, her hands trembling, her eyes dark. “Her parents were virologists, they were working with novel zoonotic agents in the hopes that they could edit one in a way that made it transmissible to humans and ultimately alter the hosts genetic sequence. They noticed that the agent they isolated was less virulent in mice models when they exposed it to the pups as opposed to the adults.”

“Wait a fucking second…” Billy scowls as he tries to sift through the jargon the doctor is spitting at him, “are you saying -”

“Yes.” Dr Ralfson doesn’t look up from his lap, “They smuggled a dose of the virus out of the lab and exposed their daughter. When she didn’t develop obvious symptoms, they injected themselves. They were impatient. There's this messed up tradition of self-experimentation in medical research and they thought it was their chance to get their names in the history books.”

“That is fan-fucking-tastic parenting right there.” Billy laughs with a shake of his head.

“They were exceptional scientists but they were shitty parents.” Dr Ralfson sighs in agreement, “They were dead within 24 hours. They died a horrific, painful deaths. Chris was found the next day when they didn’t show up to the lab. She was…” The image of her blood-stained summer dress flashes before his eyes, “She was eight years old.” He clears his throat, trying to push the guilt back down into the pit that had developed in his chest, “She’s been with us ever since.”

“So, you’re telling me our jail break was for Typhoid Mary after all?” Billy feels anger bubbling in his stomach, or it could be fear, he rarely takes the time to figure out the difference. Dr Ralfson shakes his head quickly.

“She’s not infectious.” He clarifies, “She’s never been infectious – We don’t know why she reacted the way she did… but it just… it just established itself in her system. It’s part of every cell she has, every time they replicate, it’s part of her DNA. Her body has completely assimilated the virus- we had to harvest immature cells from her bone marrow to get the viral DNA to culture it.”

“You’ve been harvesting her fucking bone marrow?” Billy turns his head sharply to look down at the doctor. He watches as the man inhales deeply and slowly turns his face to look back up at him.

“That’s nothing. What we did to that girl was -” Dr Ralfson’s voice catches in his throat as shame creeps up on him. “We deserve everything that’s coming for us.”

Billy stares down at him with a look of confusion and slight disgust. He can remember the look in Chris’ eyes when he found her, when she pressed her forehead against the barrel of his gun. At the time he assumed it was a power play, but now as he hears this doctor hint at his crimes, he wonders if she just saw an opportunity to escape.

“Why?” Billy growls, his own aggression surprising him. He pushes himself upright and plucks his handgun from the surface of the table. He moves slowly towards the tall window, trying to peer out into the darkness, aware he likely doesn’t have all night to interrogate the good doctor. If Crisp knew who was responsible for the leak it wouldn’t be long before Vought figured it out as well. “Why torture a kid just ‘cause they got sick?”

“She wasn’t sick.” Dr Ralfson spits the words out as if they hurt, “She was transformed.” Billy turns his head slowly, away from the black pool of the glass back at the constrained doctor.

“Transformed?”

“The virus it… it bound itself to her DNA in a way that... that changed her.”

“You got to stop talking in fucking riddles and get to the point.” Frustration and urgency were rising in Billy’s voice. Dr Ralfson clenches his jaw, the truth sitting like a heavy stone in his chest.

“It gave her abilities, it completely changed how her entire body communicated with itself, it changed how her body could communicate with other people.”

“What the fuck are you talking about?”

“Biological manipulation.” Dr Ralfson hisses breathlessly, “That’s what we called it. We’d never seen it before. Every cell in that girls’ body is under her direct conscious control, her cells can communicate with each other, they can communicate with cells in other organisms, in ways that we don’t even understand. But it means that she has this capacity to drastically alter biology. The virus never made her sick, instead it made her…”

"A fucking supe." Billy finishes the sentence for him, but Dr Ralfson shakes his head.

"A force of nature."

"I'm gonna be honest doc, you're losin' me." Billy sighs.

"Look, you know the way you can... hold your breath if you want, you can move your arm if you feel like it... imagine if you had that level of conscious control over every single cell of your body. Over every cell you touch." Dr Ralfson attempts to explain and watches as Billy tries to comprehend what he's attempting to communicate, he knows that this man with the battered trench coat and hand gun doesn't appreciate the potential of what he has stumbled across.

"She sounds like a glorified science project." Billy rolls his eyes. He was expecting hear how she could breathe fire, or fly, or could crush a man's skull with one hand. Hearing how she could be the best microbiologist the world has ever seen is underwhelming.

"I can show you if you want." Dr Ralfson says this quietly and nods towards a closed laptop sitting next to them on the desk. Billy scowls and reaches over, pulling the computer closer to him, snapping it open and leaning in close. There is a sudden red flash and angry white letters appear on the screen 'Access denied'.

"Don't think it likes me." Billy murmurs.

"Facial recognition, point it this way." Dr Ralfson sighs and Billy swivels the laptop around on the desk so the small dark camera can have a full view of the doctor's face. He inches forward, his eyes squinting, and a small chime echoes from the speakers. A desktop appears and Billy turns it back to face him, peering down at the collection of files and recordings. "We documented everything. Every test we ran. Every blood panel. Every aspiration. We have video recordings, audio, transcripts, raw data... every crime Vought committed against that girl is there."

"Fucking gold mine." Billy murmurs to himself as he uses the track pad to open folders, finding lists of documents and mp4's, stamped with dates and times, a comprehensive audit of pain and suffering. One folder stands out amongst the rest, embedded deep under the battery of test documentation. He turns to look down at the doctor, who appears to be growing tense again, watching him sift through this treasure trove of confidential information.

"If you want to see what she's capable of all the tests are there. Take it and go." The doctors voice is tight, and Billy frowns.

"What the fuck is a critical incident?" He watches the colour drain from the doctor’s face as his eyes flick to the small blue folder on the screen entitled ' **CRISPR CRITICAL INCIDENT 001** '.

"That's, uh - that's not important -" The doctor watches as Billy clicks on the small blue folder and a window appears, revealing numerous documents and an mp4 file, "It was just an accident we had on site, you'll get a better idea of the situation if you watch the tests."

Billy hesitates, frowning and looking at the doctor. There is a look of desperation on his face, his eyebrows sloping down, his expression pleading with Billy to ignore the open file sitting in front of him. He knows that if this is the one piece of information the doctor doesn't want him knowing, it's likely the most important. He shrugs, double clicking on the video file.

"Sorry doc, but if this is gonna tell me what happens when the shit hits the fan with this supe, I want to know what I'm in for."

* * *

****

_Chris lies sprawled on her back on her bed, her eyes fixated on the white tiles of the ceiling. On top of her lies a sleeping Louis, spread down the length of her torso, vibrating as he purrs with each breath. She keeps one arm tucked behind her head, cushioning the base of her skull as she drags the tips of her fingers along the fuzz that lines Louis' chin. She feels trapped, it is a feeling that has been slowly tightening its grip since she found herself in that fire proof room, knowing that she had no way out, knowing that people wouldn't listen when she said 'no', knowing that no one was going to come to her aid. The weight of the cat on her stomach and chest is a small comfort as she wonders what the world is like outside the walls of the lab. What it would have been like to go to school, to grow up with her mother and father, what it would be like to walk the streets, to get on a bus, to have a home._

_She hears the door to her room opening but her eyes don't move from the white, speckled tile above her. She assumes it is Nicolas coming to ask her to perform for him again, to run another test, to let them try and break her arms or dig needles into her pelvis. The answer will be no._ _She has wondered over the past few weeks how far she can push them. As she hears the sound of two sets of footsteps enter her room the thought sparks again in her mind. How far can she go before she pushes it too far? How long before they hold her down and snap her fingers? How long before 'no' isn't enough for them anymore? And how much will she cope with before she fights back?_

_"Chris." Nicolas' voice breaks through her thoughts and her head rolls over on the bed where she is laying, seeing the two men who have just entered her room. Nicolas stands with his hands solemnly clasped behind his back, the usual sombre expression of anticipatory regret on his features. She recognises the other man in the room, with his shaggy dark hair and kind eyes. Dr Jones grins at her as she catches his gaze, but she does not respond in kind. Her face remains set._

_"What?" She spits out, "I'm not going anywhere, I'm not doing any tests."_

_"We're not here for you." Nicolas' voice is quiet but the weight of his words crash into the room. Chris hesitates for a moment, staring blankly at the two men, before she feels the nausea rise into her throat. She shifts, her arm coming out from beneath her head so she can place a protective hand over the shoulders of the slumbering cat._

_"No." She chokes the word out, a look of disgust and horror seeping on her eyes._

_"I'm so sorry." Nicolas struggles to cough these words up, pain blistering through them. He takes a step forward and Chris abruptly pushes herself upright, disturbing the sleeping animal enough to rouse a confused meow from his tiny mouth. She holds him to her chest, kicking herself across the bed so her back is against the wall. She clenches her jaw as she stares at the two grown men in front of her._

_"Don't you fucking dare." She hisses these words out, "Don't take another fucking step."_

_"I'm so sorry." It's all Nicolas can say as he steps towards her again, and suddenly the room feels very small. Her eyes search the walls that she has grown up within, as if this might be the time where she'll see a way out. Dr Jones takes a step forward in tandem with Nicolas, his hands outstretched, ready to catch her should she spring from the bed._

_"Nicolas, please," She is begging, and it breaks his heart. Her grip tightens on the cat, who is growing uncomfortable beneath the mounting pressure. She hears Louis meow in protest as she presses him against the clean white material of her t-shirt, but she ignores his cry of protest, "He's mine."_

_"Honey, he's ours, and right now we need him." Dr Jones interjects, knowing that Nicolas is stalled in his own guilt, "hand him over and there won't be any trouble."_

_"Leave us alone and there won't be any fucking trouble." Chris' growls, "I know the twisted shit you do, I'm not going to let you touch him." A yowl comes from the small black cat, shifting uncomfortably in her grip, his small claws plucking at the soft cotton beneath him._

_"You don't have a choice, come on," A soft expression appears on Dr Jones' features, something resembling sympathy but not quite making it all the way there, "We really don't want this to be an issue."_

_She feels tears of panic prick in her eyes as the two men step forward again, and she knows that the discomfort on Nicolas' face is sincere, but she can't engage with it, she can't trust it. She adjusts her grip and Louis lets out an angry yowl. She wonders what she can do, cornered and terrified and willing to do anything to protect the small life in her hands. She wonders if she can change him, she wonders if she can slide into his DNA and transform him into a panther who could rip off Dr Jones' face with one swipe of his paw. She wouldn't know how, she doesn't know what that DNA would feel like, she wouldn't even know where to start. She takes in a shuddering deep breath as sobs threaten to erupt. The powerlessness is overwhelming and agonising._

_"Please just..." She kicks herself tighter against the wall, clutching the cat to her chest as she pushes herself upright and stands on her mattress, looking down at the two mean, as if she might be able to get away if she just gets high enough, "Don't. I'll do anything, just leave him -"_

_"Too late for that now, honey, you had plenty of chances. We can't take the risk you'll keep being non-compliant - we need him." Dr Jones holds out a hand, as if Chris will just hand the squirming Louis over to him. She looks at Nicolas, her eyes wide and shining as she seeks out some sort of reassurance._

_"This is over even our heads Chris, I'm so sorry." Nicolas' voice wavers as he says this, and he watches her eyes well up. She closes her eyes, squeezing them shut for a second as tears start to spill down the side of her face, tracking damp trails down her pale skin. When she opens them again her eyelids flutter, revealing a misty white pool where the blue of her iris used to be._

_"Chris, no!" He shouts. Nicolas doesn't know what she's trying to do, but he knows the last thing Vought needs is an excuse to punish her further. As he calls out he sees the cat wriggle violently in her grasp, turning sharply, with a bend of its spine, it manages to escape the binding of her fingers and spring onto the mattress with an angry hiss._

_"No!" Chris cries, reaching out after Louis as he pounces onto the floor and takes off towards the door. Nicolas doesn't miss the opportunity, and stretches out, plucking the wriggling animal from the ground as it tries to dart past his feet, gripping him firmly by the scruff of his neck as he yowls in protest._

_" **PUT HIM DOWN**!" Chris bellows_ _as she_ _launches herself from the bed, her eyes still white but brimming with unmistakable rage, flinging herself towards Nicolas with outstretched arms. Dr Jones jumps into action, rushing up behind the distressed teenager and grabs both of her arms, pulling them down and hoisting her body back towards him._

_"Let him go!" Chris' voice is shrill, and loud, and she is using every ounce of strength in her body to fight against Dr Jones' grip. But it is tight, and she can feel his fingertips eating into her skin, the blood vessels beneath blistering from the pressure._

_"I'm sorry, Chris, I'm so sorry." Nicolas is on the verge of tears, holding the angry, yowling cat in one hand as he watches Chris struggle to get to him, her white eyes wide, her teeth bared, her face flushed with anger and exertion._

_"Don't you fucking dare, don't you fucking dare Nicolas!" Her words are hot and filled with threat and vitriol. She watches as he inches towards the door, the cat dangling from his grip hissing and wailing in pain and protest. She knows what they are going to do to him, she knows why Nicolas is so apologetic. She knows they are going to kill him, she knows they are going to cut him open and examine every inch of his body, drain his blood, his cerebrovascular fluid, look at his bone marrow under microscopes, scrape his insides for traces of viral DNA. She is overpowered by the knowledge and terror that they are going to tear him apart. " **I WILL FUCKING KILL YOU!** '_

_"Come on honey, calm down," She hears Dr Jones' voice trying to bring her back to the moment, but she is lost in her rage. She watches as Nicolas stands suspended in the door frame, his heart breaking over the sight of the inconsolable and desperate girl in front of him, fighting with every ounce of her strength to save the one companion she's had through her painful, short life._

_The rage that is surging inside her is uncontrolled. She twists her arms in Jones' grip, she feels the palms of his hands pressing down on the skin of her upper arms as he pulls at her, restraining her movement. "Let me go!" She barks, her eyes forever trained on the small cat hanging from Nicolas' grasp. She can feel the tension in Jones' muscles, the synapses between his nerves firing, causing his muscles to contract with each pull of her arm. She can feel the blood rushing through his veins, the sweat forming on the surface of his skin, the tangles of his DNA._

_She is angry, she is frightened, but the fury is taking hold and she wants to destroy everything, she wants him to feel what she's feeling, she wants him to hurt. "Let me fucking go!" She roars, and she lets the rage take over. Everything she can feel she tears apart, everything she can connect to, every twist of genetic material - her mind rips through it all indiscriminately. She is unaware of what she is doing as she pushes herself forward with all her weight._

_Suddenly she spills headfirst towards the floor, the pressure on her arms is gone, his hands are gone, and with the momentum she has built up she tumbles onto the ground, catching herself with splayed hands just before her face strikes against the white floor. She stares down at the tiles, and as she hears her heart pounding in her ears she blinks, and the mist clears from her eyes._

_The silence in the room is heavy, it is bearing down on her as she slowly raises her head to look up at Nicolas. She is unsure of what happened, but the shock of the fall has meant her fury is subsiding and instead is being replaced with a sense of unease. She stares up at Nicolas, who is standing in the open doorway, holding Louis against his body. The cat has stopped yowling, and instead his small face stares over at her, his lips retracting, bearing his teeth as a threatening hiss releases from his throat, the fur on his back standing on edge._

_Her icy blue eyes try to meet Nicolas' but he is looking over her, his face pale, his eyes wide, his lips parted in what can only be described as terror. She feels her own fear forming, sickening and palpable in her chest, and she doesn't dare look over her shoulder. She watches as Nicolas takes a step backwards, his gaze never shifting as he stumbles backwards out of the room. There is an urgency to his movements as he throws the anxious cat onto the floor outside, and pulls the door shut, slamming it behind him, the sound of air releasing signalling he has locked it._

_She lies against the white tiles for a minute longer, her entire body trembling as she tries to summon the courage to just look behind her. She takes in a deep, shuddering breath, her eyes fixated on the closed door in front of her "Jones." She hisses his name through clenched teeth. There is no response, and she feels her eyes sting as her fear threatens to spill over into tears, "J-Jones." She repeats his name, her voice wavering and breaking._

_She closes her eyes momentarily and tries to remember what has just happened, what she just did to the man who was restraining her. There is nothing in her memory but rage, uncontrolled and cascading through her. She opens her eyes, blinking rapidly as she digs deep inside herself to find the nerve to turn around and just look. She exhales slowly and allows her head to turn, her eyes searching over her shoulder, scanning down the length of herself to where Dr Jones lies by her feet._

_The scream is out of her mouth before she can register what she is seeing, before she even realises that she is screaming. She rolls onto her back, the scream continuing, echoing around the room as she kicks her feet frantically across the white tiled floor, pushing herself as far from the body as she can manage. Her back hits the wall as her lungs run out of air and she gulps in another breath, her trembling hands finding her face, covering her mouth in an anxious bid to stop the sobs that now flow freely from her._

_She doesn't understand what she is looking at. The shape in front of her the shape that is supposed to be Jones, doesn't resemble him anymore. It doesn't resemble a human being anymore. Where his face once was, with his high cheekbones and charming good looks, is a bubbling mass. The mounds rise and fall, angry and red in parts, black in others, seeping purulent ooze has formed in the recesses and pits where the masses meet and clash. It looks as if something has pushed its way through his skin, forming cavernous holes and bulbous dark mounds where his eyes once were, where his mouth once was. She thinks she can make out teeth, embedded in the crevices and implanted deep in the swollen tissue, but the clash of texture and colour make it difficult to identify anything of what was once Dr Jones. His arms still look like arms, but from his hands to his elbows they are an angry and darkened, the dusky colour deepening to black at his fingertips._

_She can smell him, she can smell the gangrenous tissue from across the room, she can smell the noxious thick exudate dripping from where his chin once was onto the white tiles beneath him. She wretches, her stomach forcibly contracting as she doubles over and tries to stop bile rising too far in her throat. She pants, trying to breathe in through her mouth, but she can almost taste the malignancy in the air._

_She closes her eyes and turns her face away, pulling her knees up to her chest. She wants to leave, she wants to crash through the door and run, put as much distance between her and this room as she possibly can. She wants to grab Louis and bury her face into his fur and be comforted by the sound of his deep purring. She wants to be anywhere else, anywhere but trapped in the room with the body of a man who she has just killed, a man who is now serving as a cruel reminder of why she has been a prisoner her whole life._

_"I didn't mean to..." The words are disjointed through heavy sobs, and she cracks her eyes open to look back at the evidence of her own malevolence. She knows he cannot hear her, she knows that the if the tumours have split through his skin then they have inevitably eaten through his skull. She knows he is dead, but she feels the need to say something to him, as if it might provide some sort of redemption, "I'm sorry," She whispers this, hushed and ashamed, "I'm so sorry."_


	8. Dead End Host

_  
With every stab wound and exhale, I promised myself_   
_That I would never lose my youthful fears of grown up men_   
_I'm scarred with cruel intentions_

_I thought of another the whole time_

_Who would have never stared me like that_   
_See, he saw me as a human_   
_This one thinks I'm a slaughterhouse_

* * *

It takes a minute to process, to slowly wash over Billy and sink in, but the horror he feels crystallises as he stares at the pixels on the computer screen. He had wanted to believe it so badly, he had wanted to believe that she wasn’t sick, that she wasn’t contagious, that she was just a vulnerable girl who had been taken advantage of by a malicious corporation. He feels his stomach lurch as the horror deepens, knowing that there is no longer any space for denial.

He had seen horrific things before, he had seen supes tear people apart, rip into them, he had seen them burn innocent people alive. But he had never seen this before. He knows the image of the young doctors' face, smiling one minute and erupting with purulent, necrotic tumours the next, is going to follow him for the rest of his life. He reaches over and slams the laptop shut, unable to look at the grainy image of the disease-ridden corpse any longer.

“You fucking liar.” He growls this, deep and guttural, towards the doctor who is still strapped down to his office chair. Dr Ralfson’s face is stricken with panic, and he shakes his head, recognising the fear that Billy is experiencing.

“No, you don’t understand - ”

“No, **_you_ **don’t understand, you said she wasn’t **fucking** contagious,” Billy’s fear is pumping through his veins, making him bear his teeth, specks of spit raining down on the captive doctor, “What the fuck do you call that? I’ve sprung a walking, talking _fucking_ pandemic from your lab.”

“It’s not what it looks like –“ Dr Ralfson voice pitches and cracks in his desperation. He doesn’t know how to convince this man that Chris is not dangerous, that what he just witnessed wasn’t evidence of her virulence.

“Really? Cause it looks like you made a big fucking mistake, doc.” Billy picks up the laptop and tucks it under his arm, “It looks like you were holding onto a glorified bio-fucking-weapon. It looks like you should have put a bullet between her eyes when you had the chance - ” Billy catches himself, shaking his head, his thoughts pausing on his own missed opportunities, “It looks like I should have put that fucking bullet between her eyes.”

“No!” Dr Ralfson cries, “It was an accident, she was a child!”

“An accident!?” Billy laughs in disbelief, leaning over and picking up the handgun, nursing it in his hand as he steps around the desk. He thinks the doctor is delusional, brain washed by dazzling blue eyes. He wishes he could afford to reject reality in the same way, “Disease ain’t fucking intentional, doctor, doesn’t mean it ain’t dangerous, doesn’t mean she isn’t fucking lethal.”

Billy takes a few steps towards the door. He thinks of Crisp back in the safe house and he hopes that she is still there, he hopes that he isn’t going to venture back into the city and discover a trail of corpses, misshapen, blackened, blistering growths sprouting where their eyes and mouth once were. He wonders if he is infected, he wonders if it is only a matter of time before he experiences the same horrific death that he just witnessed. He adjusts his grip on the laptop as he strides towards the door. He hopes he is not too late, he hopes he still has a chance to put an end to this.

“It’s not what you think, Dr Jones was never infected - ” Dr Ralfson’s voice carries through the mahogany lined room, cutting off as the tall wooden door to the room swings open.

The gunshots ring out before Billy has a chance to notice the man striding through the entrance to the office, dressed head to toe in black, handgun raised, bouncing as the bullets eject from the barrel. Billy had failed to hear the tyres on the gravel path outside, he had failed to hear the sound of the front door opening, he had been too busy panicking, engrossed in the disturbing images he was witnessing. He had been too wrapped up in the realisation that he had released a dangerous virus on the population that he had completely missed the immediate danger that was pulling into the driveway.

Billy tries to raise his own gun but as the noise of gunshots ring off the high walls he feels a weight explode against his chest, and he finds himself spinning. He is pulled off balance, and crashes into the plush red rug beneath his feet. He hears Dr Ralfson let out a cry of fear, not used to such overt violence play out in front of him.

“Doctor,” The stranger who has entered the room lowers his gun and nods towards Dr Ralfson as he strains against his bindings, “We received an alert that an unknown intruder was trying to access your home computer. Are you hurt?”

Dr Ralfson’s eyes are trained on Billy, lying face down on the floor, laptop cast aside, a dark stain starting to blossom through the material stretched over his back, “No, I’m – I’m okay. He didn’t hurt me.” Dr Ralfson coughs out. The man nods, and places the handgun back into a smooth, black leather holster on his hip.

“Good.” The stranger sighs and looks down at the mortally wounded man before him, strewn across the floor. He notices the gun inches away from the body. There are no signs of life, not even the rise and fall of his back to signal he is breathing, or the gurgled sound of breath as he tries to force air into his punctured lung. The stranger moves forward to retrieve the gun.

Billy is quick, he grunts and lurches forward, grabbing the gun before throwing himself unceremoniously onto his back. He ignores the pain that is rapidly spreading down his arm, and swiftly raises the gun in his trembling hand. The stranger barely has time to react, his eyebrows rising, his hands starting to reach towards his waist, before Billy’s fingers squeeze the trigger and a bullet careers towards his face, catching him on the rise of his brow bone, tearing its way through his skull. Billy shoots again, and again, and again until he is firing up into empty air and the gun clicks, signalling the chamber is empty.

“Fuck!” Billy screams as the man smashes into the floor, his body now deadweight as the blood cascades down his face. His eyes are still open, but there is no life behind them. The bullets that found him had scorched his skull, exploding into thousands of fragments that shredded his brain. Billy grits his teeth and tosses his empty gun to one side, every breath is agony, every time he tries to expand his chest and suck air into his lungs it burns. He is hurt. He is badly hurt.

He rolls onto his front again and pushes himself upright. He feels warm, viscous liquid start to pour down his back, beneath his shirt, saturating the fabric and making it stick to his skin. His head spins, and he raises his empty hand to his chest, his fingers searching for evidence.

He finds it, the frayed material, the heat radiating from the deep hole in his chest, blood pulsating out with every beat of his heart. He pulls his hand away and stares down at the red stains on his fingertips. He wants to throw up, and suddenly his muscles tense, and his chest contracts tightly, a cough forcing its way through the excruciating pain as his torn muscles try to pull together. He doubles over as his lungs try to clear, and the taste is what hits him. The taste is metallic, it is hot, and it coats his tongue.

He looks up at the Doctor who has watched this entire scene play out, a forced witness tied down by duct tape. His face is sombre, and his eyes are inappropriately soft. He shakes his head as he sees the scarlet staining on Billy’s teeth, “You need medical attention.” The doctors voice is serious, the reality of Billy’s situation clear on his face.

“Not an option,” Billy tries to choke these words out, and as he does more blood bubbles past his lips. He is trying to calculate how long it will take to get back to the apartment, how much time he has before his inability to get a full breath gets the better of him, before the blood loss is too much. He needs to try, he needs to fix his mistake, he knows that this is bigger than him.

“You’ll die.” The doctor says this as he watches the flecks of blood disappear into Billy’s beard, as he watches the man stagger forward towards the door, catching himself on the frame, and taking in a deep, agonising breath to prepare himself to make the trip out to his car, the distance seemingly endless now. Billy grunts and tries to straighten up, glancing momentarily back at the doctor.

“Yeah, I might,” He groans as he lurches forward, “But I got someone I got to take with me.”

* * *

_The two men on either side of her are unrecognisable by design. The fluorescent yellow hazmat suits they wear cover every inch of them, cinched up tight around their face. The large masks they wear, inclusive of respirators and thick Perspex visors, obscure their features. She walks in tandem with them, their latex gloved hands on each of her shoulders as they direct her down a winding maze of corridors._

_Chris isn’t used to this part of the building. She is a level lower than she has ever been before, beneath the usual labyrinth of clinical assessment rooms and two-way mirrors. If this was a few months prior she would have asked where they were going, she would have known the names of these men, she would have smiled and joked and asked them about their lives outside these walls. Instead they do not speak, instead she was roused from a locked room and led down the stairs without so much as a ‘good morning’._

_If this was just a week earlier she would have had fight in her. She would have challenged these men, she would have twisted out of their grip and refused to move. She would have screamed. Instead she follows without blinking, without raising her head to try and meet their eyes. She lets them guide her, she lets herself be nothing more than a passenger as her feet pad along the basement corridors to the large, stainless steel door._

_It swings open before them and she feels their grip tighten on her shoulders, pressing into her white hospital scrubs that match the sterility of the setting. She steps forward into the room obediently, understanding the gesture. Their hands don’t leave her shoulders, instead the men follow her into the room and shut the door behind them._

_Chris inhales sharply as her surroundings come into focus. The chill in the air, the stacks of stainless-steel doors climbing towards the ceiling, the drains inlaid amongst the white tiles. This is a morgue, and her eyes flit to the table in the centre of the room, the rise of a body unmistakable beneath a translucent plastic sheet. She feels her stomach lurch as she casts her gaze up to look at the woman who stands behind it, her teeth exposed in what is intended to be a smile._

_“Christiane I presume,” The light casual tone of her voice is painfully out of place, “It’s a pleasure to finally meet you, I hope you don’t mind if I hold off shaking your hand – we can’t be too careful.”_

_Chris doesn’t move, she doesn’t blink. She stares back at the woman with her jaw clenched and her hands curled tightly into fists at her side. She’s being held by a mixture of terror and frustration, her muscles rigid as she tries to run through scenarios in her mind, tries to come up with hypothetical situations where this ends well for her._

_The woman’s smile remains, and she blinks rapidly, as if she had expected a warm reception. “My name is Madelyn, I’m not sure if you’ve heard of me but I have heard plenty of stories about you. You’re an impressive young lady.”_

_Madelyn. She knows that name. Madelyn Stillwell. She had heard the name roll off Nick’s tongue in panicked bursts when he was worried about the progress they were making, she had heard it spat from Professor Dayton’s mouth when she needed something to threaten him with. The pair of them had been notably absent since the incident, instead Chris has dealt exclusively with silent, masked strangers who stripped down her room and bring her lukewarm food three times a day. Hearing someone speak to her makes her feel human again, raw and hurt, but definitively human._

_“I’m not sure those are the words I’d choose.” Chris mumbles, her eyes darting down to look at the rise of the body between the pair of them._

_“Do you know who I am?” Madelyn asks, her eyebrows rising towards her perfectly quaffed blonde hair, “Do you know what I do with this company?”_

_Chris shakes her head slowly, “I know you’re important.” She states this simply, her voice flat, no tone of deference, “I don’t know why.”_

_Madelyn lets out a tinkling laugh, as if the ignorance is funny and endearing. As if the ignorance doesn’t reflect over a decade of isolation and imprisonment. “To be honest I don’t know why either.” She says this with a self-effacing chuckle, but Chris fails to get the joke. “Have you heard of the Seven?”_

_Chris nods this time, “I saw them on TV a few times.”_

_“Well I’m sort of their manager.” Madelyn says, and Chris shrugs, folding her arms over her chest._

_“Good for you.”_

_“Do you have any idea why I’m here today?” Madelyn’s eyes narrow and she looks uncertain, as if Chris should have been expecting the visit. Chris shakes her head._

_“They’ve stopped telling me… anything.” Chris chokes the words out and looks down at her feet, “but I can guess.”_

_“You don’t need to be frightened.” Madelyn’s voice changes from the off-putting bright and chipper tone that had cut against the grain, to one that is soft and comforting. Chris frowns, deeply unsure of the situation, and glances up at the masked men at either side of her, as if their behaviour might somehow indicate how she should be feeling. Instead all she can see are the fluorescent lights reflecting off their visors. “I admit I am here to talk to you about the critical incident we had here last week, but you’re not in trouble.”_

_Chris’ eyes travelled back to meet Madelyn’s, an expression of suspicion and uncertainty painted on her features. She had been stripped of everything, of all her personal possessions, her own clothing, any form of familiar company. It had all been taken from her, and even without any explanation she couldn’t help but feel like it was punishment. And she felt she deserved it. “It was an accident.” She hisses this between her teeth, worried that if she relaxes she will break down._

_“Oh, honey, I know.” Madelyn sighs, waving a hand and dismissing her excuse. “I’ve seen the video, the only person more terrified than you in that room was Dr Jones who… didn’t have long to appreciate your talents.”_

_“Talents.” Chris repeats the word with disgust._

_“Yes, talents. And I really have to apologise, I completely underestimated just how valuable you could be to this company.” Madelyn shrugs her shoulders, but then waves her hand, beckoning Chris to come closer, “You look like you’re about to bolt for the door - I don’t bite.”_

_Chris inhales sharply and takes a few steps forward so that the only thing separating them is the metal table and whatever is hiding beneath the translucent tarp. Madelyn grins even broader, but Chris doesn’t mimic the expression. “I do need to talk to you about this though,” Madelyn states, holding out her two hands, gesturing to the piled translucent tarp between the pair of them. She reaches down, gripping the plastic between her fingers, and pulls it back._

_Chris’ stomach lurches as she finds herself staring down at the contorted mass she recognises as Dr Jones. The purulent discharge that had once coated the large, angry tumours has dried, crusting over previously open wounds. She takes a step backwards and tries to control the overwhelming nausea, averting her gaze, unsure if she can’t bear to look at the cancerous wounds or if she can’t face the guilt._

_“Sorry, I didn’t realise you were squeamish.” Madelyn’s words lack any trace of sincerity, and Chris grits her teeth, blinking back tears so that she can meet Madelyn’s gaze without flinching. “Are you going to be okay?”_

_“Yes” Chris growls, and Madlyn nods curtly._

_“Good. Well,” She gestures down to the disfigured corpse that lies down between them, “Would you care to explain this?”_

_Chris’ face twists in confusion “What do you mean explain?” She feels it is obvious, she feels the anger and vitriol she felt manifested itself perfectly on this man’s body. It doesn’t need an explanation, it is written on his skin._

_“I mean… when we saw this we initially thought that it was some bizarre presentation of a Volhard virus infection.”_

_“I’m not contagious.” Chris says this flatly, and Madlyn nods cautiously._

_“Well, that’s what we assumed until we saw what you did to that cat.” Madelyn explains, and immediately grief wraps itself around Chris’ throat, “We thought that's how it healed, that you had transmitted the virus to the cat and that it had a similar response to you… Dr Ralfson had a term for it…”_

_“Anthroponosis.” Chris mumbles and Madelyn nods sharply,_

_“But then there was no trace of the virus on examination.” Madelyn states, and Chris tries to not let herself choke on her sadness, she tries not to think about Louis’ face, his tiny teeth and claws, the way he would curl up under her chin whilst she slept. “And then this happens.”_

_“I didn’t transmit the virus to him.” Chris’ voice wavers with emotion, but Madelyn can still hear the certainty in her words._

_“Do you know what he has?”_

_Chris purses her lips together and her eyes travel down to the mass of tumours where Dr Jones’ face once was. She nods, shame quickly overtaking grief. “Cancer.”_

_“Fourteen different types.” Madelyn’s voice is filled with disbelief, with a hint of awe, “Through the entirety of his body. Widespread, end stage, within seconds. And his blood is sludge.”_

_“Disseminated intravascular coagulation.” Chris’ eyes dart back up to meet Madelyn’s, who is shaking her head in amazement._

_“You did this, right? This was deliberate.” Madelyn doesn’t appear angry, instead her voice sounds excited, “You took everything that Dr Ralfson had been teaching you and you… you made him sick. You made him so sick, so quickly, that in less than a minute he was dead."_

_“I didn’t mean to, I was just angry and scared and I -” The excuses tumble from Chris’ mouth but Madelyn shakes her head, raising a hand to silence her._

_“I’m not scolding you Christiane, I’m just trying to understand what we’re working with here.” Madelyn gestures again to the brutalised body, “This is beyond anything we hoped for. We thought you could make yourself stronger, faster, you could heal, and that maybe we could figure out how to transmit this and replicate your abilities but… this -”_

_“I was just trying to get away.” Chris murmurs this under her breath. She is unsure why Madelyn is so enamoured with the destruction she has caused, it is nothing new, just the same principles applied in a different way. But she is the only one living with the virus, living with this interconnectedness that is so natural and reflexive that it feels like breathing._

_“This opens up so many doors for us Christiane, don’t you realise?” Madelyn doesn’t understand the lack of excitement in the young woman in front of her, “I mean, I’m sure it’s a dream of yours to join the Seven?”_

_Chris purses her lips together and summons a small shrug. “I don’t know much about them.” She admits. She had never had much of an interest in the phenomena of superheroes, instead Nicholas had effectively blinkered her so the only thing that captured her attention was the world of the medical science. Her teenage obsessions had been Joseph Lister and Louis Pasteur. She had spent her adolescence devouring books on pathology, reading about human anatomy and physiology, about how it should function, how it could function and how it could all go horribly wrong._

_She had wanted to help people, she had wanted to learn how to heal them. And instead she had torn apart this man’s genetic material so haphazardly that he no longer had a face._

_“Well, trust me, you have the potential. And it would mean you could finally get out of this place. I mean, we’d need to make you a little bit more marketable - ” Madelyn gestures to the mass of crusted tumours and open wounds, “The optics here aren’t great. But we can work on that, you can learn to be subtler. And just think about what we can do together in terms of bioweapons, trust me – Mr Edgar is going to be **very** happy.”_

_As Chris listens to she feels her stomach twist uncomfortably beneath her diaphragm, her muscles tensing across her back. She hears the word 'bioweapon' and she physically flinches, remembering the rabbit from years ago with the pouring pink eyes, “Sorry-” Chris hisses through clenched teeth, “Bioweapons?”_

_“Oh yes, Christiane, the defense industry is cut throat,,” There is almost a laugh to Madelyn’s voice, as if what she has just alluded to does not amount to war crimes, “If we want to be competitive we’re going to have to diversify”_

* * *

The sound of footsteps vibrates through the walls, uneven and hurried. Crisp looks up from where she is sitting, curled up on the stained material of the sofa. She is wearing the clothes she managed to scrape out of the duffel bag, a baggy grey t-shirt and a pair of jeans two sizes too large, clearly not meant for her. They have been trapped in the polyester depths of the bag long enough that they now smell stale and musty.

Her eyes travel to the door of the apartment as she hears the scrambling noise of flat palms striking against the walls, feet tripping over each other. She straightens up, pushing herself to the edge of the sofa, her brow furrowing. There is a silence that settles uneasily over the apartment and she clears her throat, “H-hello?” She calls out cautiously, her ears straining for noise.

The sound of the door handle turning breaks the silence, which is completely shattered as the door swings unceremoniously open and the body of a man falls through. She jumps to her feet, her eyes settling on the frame of Billy as he braces himself against the wall just in time, preventing his body weight from pulling him to the floor. She gasps as he lurches forward and she sees the red streak he leaves on the cream paint. “You’re hurt.” She says this quietly, her eyes lingering on the blood that remains behind him like a shadow.

Billy ignores her, using his body weight to move from the entrance of the apartment to the small, contained kitchenette to his left. He catches himself on the edge of the counter. He is panting, unable to get a full breath, the copper taste of blood bright on the tip of his tongue. He reaches down and pulls open a draw with a swift movement, the cutlery inside crashing.

He is exhausted, he is so tired he can barely pull a coherent thought together. The one thing keeping him upright, the one thing that is stopping him from sliding to the floor and giving into the sleep that is pulling at him from behind his eyes, is the image of the disfigured corpse of the young doctor that he had seen on that grainy recording.

Crisp steps towards the kitchen, “You’re hurt,” she repeats this, her voice small as she watches him root around in the drawers, his eyes wide, his attention deeply focused, “You’re bleeding.” She watches as he pulls the drawers out of the cabinet, knives, forks and spoons clattering over the tiled floor. She winces, and she feels fear starting to gnaw at the edges of her consciousness, “Billy,” she says softly, “stop, let me look at you.”

“No!” He snarls as he tears into another drawer, his hands disappearing into it as he hunches over. She steps towards the kitchenette, her fingers flexing as she pauses in the gap between the counters, scraping her teeth across her lower lip.

“What are you looking for? Maybe I can help?” Her voice is measured and even. She can tell from the way he is breathing, the way he is doubled over, that he is seriously injured. She can smell the copper of his blood already in the air, a scent she is deeply and uncomfortably familiar with. She wants to reach out and touch him, slide the palms of her hands over his skin and make it right, but she doesn’t dare move. 

“Found it.” Billy grunts, and he stumbles backwards, landing against of the kitchen cupboards behind him. Crisp can see him now, she can see the full rise and fall of his chest. It is rapid, it is shallow, and it looks painful. She sees that his dark shirt is almost entirely coated with his thick, viscous blood, making it stick to his skin. She can see the wound in his chest, small, precise, giving no suggestion of the gaping hole in his back where the bullet decided to leave. She inhales sharply, she can see the paleness of the skin of his face, his lips lined with dark, clotted blood, the sweat clinging in beads to his forehead.

“You’re dying.” The words escape her, no thought of tact or consideration. Billy smirks, his teeth coated with the same dark blood as his lips. He is trying to catch his breath but he knows that is no longer an option, instead his breathing is quick and sharp, and he turns his head to look at Crisp. She looks worried for him, and he wonders for a second if her concern is sincere, he wonders if it even matters at this point.

“Tell me something I don’t know.” He laughs, but speaking makes him cough and blood sprays freely into the air in front of him. He shakes his head, trying to fight through the overwhelming dizziness that is crashing down on him. He pushes himself off the counter, holding out his right hand, showing Crisp what he had been so desperately searching for.

Crisp takes a step back as the carving knife comes into view, Billy’s grip tight around the handle, the light catching off the blade, sending scattered blinking patterns over the cream walls. “Billy, what happened?” Her voice is still so small, and Billy feels anger start to stir somewhere in the midst of his dizziness. She seems so innocent, she seems so clueless, but he had seen with his own eyes the sickness that this woman was carrying.

“The doc showed me some home movies.” Billy snarls as he lurches forward and Crisp leaps backwards away from him. Billy holds the knife out in front of him, the blade pointed directly towards her. “Of you throwing a fucking temper tantrum over some cat.”

Billy watches as Crisp’s face falls, realisation giving way to grief. She raises her hands in front of her, the reality of the situation revealing itself, and he wonders for a second if she is going to cry. “It was an accident,” Her eyes are shining and her voice is breaking. Billy feels the corners of his world darkening, the only sounds he can hear is his own rapid heart rate, his own wheezing breaths. He needs to do this now.

He throws himself forward, arm and knife outstretched, and he expects her to move out of his way, he expects her to run. She doesn’t. Instead his full weight comes down on top of her small frame, the pair of them spilling backwards, His body pins her against the wall, his forehead striking against the plaster. He flexes his hand, his fingers wrapped around the handle of the blade, and he feels his knuckle digging into the soft material of her t-shirt. He sucks in an agonising breath, and pushes down into his heels with his remaining strength, channelling all the pressure through his arm and into the handle.

Crisp feels the metal tear into her, pushing through her skin and her muscles, sliding into the viscera of her abdomen, slicing open blood vessels and wedging itself under her diaphragm. She opens her mouth, as if she is going to cry out, as if she is going to scream, but instead there is a vacuum, an absence of sound as Billy braces himself so he can cut even deeper. She reaches down, her hands finding his, flush against her stomach. She wraps hers around the rise of his knuckles, they are clammy and slick, the skin tight with exertion. He is dying.

Beneath him she feels small, his head is bent and pressed hard against the wall so that his rapid breath hits against the skin of her neck, humid and warm. She can feel the pain unfurling through her stomach, and she blinks rapidly, tears rising to the rim of her eyes, spilling over. “Sorry kid.” She can hear Billy push these words out, struggling against the blood that is pooling in his lung. “Nothin’ personal,” He coughs, and she can feel the hot flecks of blood rain down on her throat, “Ain’t your fault you’re sick.”

She feels him trembling, and she knows he can’t get enough oxygen into his lungs to keep his heart pumping, she knows that most of his blood is soaked into his shirt and coat. He pulls back, trying to shift his weight onto his feet, and he withdraws his head. She looks up at him as his face comes into view, his dark eyes bloodshot, his lips and chin coated in that tell-tale maroon liquid, coagulating in the curls of his beard. She tries to force a smile to her own lips, something to comfort him, some sort of respite as death creeps up on them both. He is still tightly gripping the handle of the knife that is wedged inside her, and she runs her thumb gently along the skin on the back of his hand in a cautious attempt to reassure him.

“It’s okay,” She whispers, her own body fighting against her a she tries to be present with him, as she tries to stop herself from slipping into her reflexes, from stopping the pain and the rush of blood. She grits her teeth and locks eyes with him, “You’re going to be okay.”

She doesn’t know if he can hear her, or if the statement is so profoundly stupid at this moment in time that he ignores it. Instead he pulls his hand back, his grip still tight, and the blade of the knife follows. The metal slides back through the tissue of her abdomen, a sudden release of pressure, a sudden rush of air and blood. The sensation takes her breath away, hot liquid spilling over her stomach, drenching her.

Billy grunts, his eyelids weighing heavy, his hand shaking as his white knuckles relax and the bloody knife clatters to the ground. He tries to tell himself it is enough, he tries to tell himself that this has killed her, and he glances down at the rapidly spreading stain around the dark slit in her t-shirt. It is vivid and scarlet, and he knows he has struck right where he needed to. His eyes cast back up to hers, they are wide, gleaming, and he hates how vulnerable she looks. He hates that she didn't try to fight him. He hates that she didn't deserve this.

The weakness is overwhelming, and he is growing colder by the second as he tries to clear the clogged feeling in his throat, the tightness extending across his chest, making each breath a conscious effort. He is done, he has made sure that no one else has to die because of his mistake, and he feels the pull of oblivion winning the battle. His knees give out, his body heavy with the weight of unconsciousness, and he crashes to the ground.

Crisp watches him as he falls, the floor shaking as he lands face down in the musty carpet. She leans against the wall, her fingers spreading across her abdomen, her palms finding the split in her skin. She presses down, as if this is the only option for stemming the bleeding. She grits her teeth, she wants to fix this, she wants to reach into herself and stop the pain, stop the gush of blood, stop the cold that is starting to spread to her fingertips. She can’t, not yet.

She closes her eyes, gritting her teeth as she allows herself to slide down the wall until she comes to a gentle stop seated on the floor, knees rising above her. She turns her head to look at Billy, his body sprawled away from her, noisy rattles echoing from his throat with each infrequent, shallow breath. Crisp groans with effort as she pushes herself from the wall, pulling her body over to where Billy is lying. She can feel her blood rushing from her with each beat of her heart, but she knows that she has more time than he does.

She reaches out and uses all of her remaining strength to push Billy. He is heavy, dead weight, and Crisp grunts with a mixture of pain and exertion as she rolls him off his front and onto his back, his head lolling to one side. She takes a moment to catch her breath before dragging herself closer. She looks down at him, he is a mixture of blood, sweat, dark hair, and pale skin.

She reaches out, pulling his arm up from where it is laying at his side, and she wraps her hand tightly around his, their fingers interlacing. She draws her body closer to his, pulling her knees towards her chest, curling up and resting her head on his chest. She feels his sodden shirt beneath her cheek, his blood smearing her skin, seeping into her hair. She closes her eyes as she hears the faint patter of his heart beat from where her ear is pressed down against his sternum. She feels herself slip, she feels herself getting lost in the erratic rhythm of his heart, in the maze of his circulation, in his unsteady breathing. She grips his hand tight and allows herself to give in to the crushing need to fix him.


	9. Tacchycardia

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for the delay in publishing this - I submitted my thesis this month.
> 
> It's also shorter than intended because of re-writes.

_And I will never be  
I will never be myself  
I will never be  
I will never be too well_

* * *

_The days have merged into one, passing in repetitive cycles of wakening, washing, eating, sleeping. She sees no one, she says nothing, she sits on the white sheets curled around a thin mattress and watches the clock above her door, counting down each second. Counting down to more empty time. She knows it is there to taunt her, to show her how slow time can move when it is all you have to watch, when you want anything to preoccupy your mind so you don’t find it ebbing into the horrors of the past or skipping to the terror of the future. She also knows it is keeping her sane, that without it she would have nothing available with which to check reality, to understand whether an hour has passed or if it has been weeks._

_She understands why Madelyn is doing this, that it is not a punishment but a means to an end. Madelyn’s meeting had not gone to plan, she was expecting an attention starved teenager, she was not expecting an idealist. Chris’ refusal to play into the whims of Vought is something that needs correcting. She needs to know how bad it can be, how much worse it can get, so that when normalcy is offered she will run forward with open arms. She will embrace all the moral ambiguity just so she can exist again. She will allow herself to be weaponised._

_So, Chris sits and waits. As weeks pass she finds herself performing small experiments, seeing how long she can keep her eyes open without blinking, how long she can hold her breath. As months pass she finds out how long she can go without food, how long she can go without sleep. She tries to find anything to occupy her mind, to stifle the undertow of guilt that is buried beneath each of her thoughts._

_She finds herself speaking into the vacuum of the room, desperate to use her vocal cords. And she speaks to anyone who will listen, reciting facts that surface in her mind, singing songs she listened to when music was in her life, performing long, non-sensical monologues about the weather. She never once asks for help, she never cries out to the strangers delivering her food through a slot in the door. She speaks because she can, because she needs to hear something other than sound of the ticking clock and her own breathing. She needs to drown out the thoughts that crack through her consciousness, reminding her of open sores and purulent wounds._

_Chris doesn’t know how long she has been in the room when she looks down at her hands and wonders what her fingers would look like without nails. She falls into herself, her eyes glossing over with that milky haze, and her fingernails drop from her cuticles like autumn leaves. She grins and holds them up to the fluorescent life, the exposed flesh pink and new. She realises her body is her own playground, she realises she has a new distraction from the gnawing guilt and loneliness that saturates every thought._

_She floods her brain with serotonin and dopamine and spends her days reclining in her bed, watching vivid hallucinations play out in front of her, hearing disembodied voices finally acknowledging her existence. She hears music again and she rises to her feet to spin across the room, uncoordinated and out of time, laughing at herself. She is psychotic, floridly and deliberately, and it makes her feel so much less alone._

_She starts to find the whiteness of the room overbearing. When she slides out of the psychosis, when the dazzling array of colours leave her, the white walls feel so much more oppressive. When she is present in the world around her she finds her mind racing with the reality she is embedded within. She looks at the locked doors and feels suffocated, she stands beneath the running water of her shower and each drop of water feels like a needle, driving its way into her skin, forcing her into the present moment._

_In her moments of lucidity she is crushed beneath the weight of her loneliness. She finds herself wondering if she’ll see another person again, if she’ll be able to hold a conversation with a person, hear a voice that hasn’t been pieced together by dysregulated neurotransmitters. The ache drives itself deeper inside her with each passing day, so that eventually not even the psychosis can chase away the gnawing isolation._

_She knows she cannot do this anymore._

_She lies on her back on the bed, staring up at the blank ceiling tiles as the dazzling colours she has conjured from surges of dopamine in her brain dissipate. She blinks a few times as her vision comes into focus, and the agony of the room, of the white walls and empty space, splinters through her._

_She has reached a threshold and she cannot go back._

_She digs into herself, a cloud spilling across her eyes, and she can feel the crackle of electricity across her heart. She wonders why she hasn’t thought of this before, why something so blissfully simple hadn’t crept across her mind. She is tired, she is alone, and a deep self-hatred has made her own company suffocating. She can see her escape, she can see that she’s always had an open door, it was just one she was far too scared to step through._

_She blinks back tears, her fear replaced with desperation, and she stops her own heart._

* * *

Consciousness wrenches him back into his body, and the first thing he notices is the weight on his chest, solid and pressing down on his sternum. The next is the warmth, spreading to the furthest reaches of his body, replacing the unbearable cold that had seeped deep into his bones. It feels as if he has whiskey racing through his veins, hitting his fingertips and flushing his face.

He assumes this is death, that the exquisite feeling he has unfurling across his chest is just his body relaxing into it. He doesn’t quite understand why it feels so good, why suddenly he can feel his heart beating in his chest, strong and steady. He scowls as he slowly pries his eyes open and finds himself staring up at a damp stained ceiling. Sure, he should be going to hell, but it shouldn’t look so fucking boring. He hesitates, before taking in a deep breath. He feels oxygen hit his lungs, clear and unobstructed, it feels like he has been drowning and has finally surfaced for air.

He is alive.

His eyes travel down to survey his body, and he sees what is causing the heaviness on his chest. He sees the top of her head, strands of white hair stained pink with specks of blood. “The fuck -” He starts, his chest vibrating with the sound of his voice. She doesn’t move, the dead weight of her bearing down on him. She is curled up around him, his hand is in hers, their fingers interlocked, but there is no grip to them. She is cold.

He shakes his hand free and pushes himself out from beneath her. Her head thuds heavily against the floor, and he winces, hesitating and waiting for her to move. Nothing. He clambers to his feet, and immediately the world starts to spin. He reaches out and collapses against the nearest wall, sucking in a deep breath, waiting for the dizziness to pass.

As his heart races in his chest he takes a moment to take in the scene around him. He can remember everything. He can remember the video recording of the young doctor whose body was overwhelmed by blackened tumours, the panic as he realised the potential plague he had just released on the unsuspecting public. He surveys the room and the sheer amount of blood is breath taking. It is tracked around the kitchen, the prints of his shoes on the tiles and carpet, his bloody handprints on the walls and cupboards. He looks at the ground and sees where the blood has pooled in massive volumes, clotting in thick globules in the fibres of the carpet. He can remember the taste of his own blood, he can remember the searing pain in his chest. He can remember how it felt to slide the knife under Crisp’s ribs.

He knows he should be dead. He is standing upright, leaning heavily against the wall, and every breath he sucks in feels wrong. He grunts and stumbles forward, his legs feeling heavier than he remembers, and manages to make his way over to the narrow door to the bathroom. He pushes the door open with his bodyweight and falls awkwardly inside. He doesn’t feel sick or hurt, instead he feels as if he is brand new, as if his muscles didn’t expect to be moving, as if his brain is having to recalibrate to consciousness. He feels drunk.

He finds what he is looking for, his own reflection in the mirror set into the medicine cabinet over the sink. He grits his teeth as he looks at his face, examining the flush of his skin, the blood caked into his beard. He turns the tap, water sputtering out, and splashes it over his face, rubbing his chin until the crusted remnants of his blood are gone. He can still smell the hot copper scent, and he glances down at his clothes. They are saturated, and he shrugs his jacket off in one fluid motion.

His shirt is dark and heavy with the amount of fluid that has been absorbed into the cotton fibres. As he examines the material he spots the hole, over the left-hand side of his chest, the frayed edges of the material twisted and burned. He raises his hand and dips a finger into the centre, half expecting searing pain and an open wound. Instead his fingertip presses down on the intact flesh on his chest. He scowls, and pushes down harder, as if he is expecting the skin to give way beneath the pressure.

“What the actual **_fuck_** ,” He growls. He raises both his hands and they find the edge where his shirt closes around his body. He pulls hard, the buttons popping free form their threads, clattering in the sink beneath him. He tears his shirt from his torso and his eyes dart back to the mirror in front of him.

His skin is stained a dark red colour, clumps of dried blood tracking their way down his chest and stomach. His whole body is a crime scene, with the exception of a single circle of untouched skin sitting below his clavicle. His scowl deepens and he remembers the blistering pain he had felt through his chest, exploding out of his back. He swings round, craning his neck so he can catch a glimpse of his own shoulder blades in the mirror. Again, there is blood smeared all over his skin, collecting in the valley that runs down his spine. Except for a larger, ragged patch of skin stretched from the top of his shoulder to his ribs. The skin is intact, it is unstained, and it should not fucking be there.

He hears a noise in the adjoining room and his attention is pulled away from the dizzying confusion of his unbroken body. His hands drop and he steps cautiously towards the doorway. The floor seems to shift beneath his feet, but he can still hear the distinct sound of a quiet moan travel through the small apartment.

He steps boldly through the door, his uneasy balance forcing him to hold his hands out, ready to catch himself should he fall. He sees the large red stain on the cream carpet, but Crisp is no longer lying there curled up in the foetal position. Instead she is standing, facing away from him, doubled over and leaning against the kitchenette, her shoulders rising and falling rapidly as if she is trying to catch her breath.

Billy isn’t sure what to say. He opens his mouth, but the surreal situation he has found himself in is beyond words. This is a woman he just killed, he had felt his knife go deep enough inside her that he knew he must have cut something important. He had been dying, she had been dying, and now he is standing in front of his own murder victim without a scratch on him.

She turns her head slightly, glancing over her shoulder to see Billy standing there, his shirtless torso covered in aging blood, his mouth hanging open in stunned silence. She tries to force a shaky smile to her face, “I know,” She sighs, and she watches as his mouth opens wider, his brow furrowing, still trying to piece together what is happening. She is distracted though, she can’t help but admire the flush of the skin on his face, the even rise and fall of his chest, and the brightness of his eyes. She feels a grin materialise on her lips as she turns to face him, still resting her bodyweight against the countertops. He is alive, and she feels pride swelling inside her, “I know, it’s a bit of a head rush.”

“You can say that again.” Billy murmurs, and his eyes survey the woman in front of her. She is drenched the same way he is, the denim of her jeans coated and saturated with thick blood, her once grey t-shirt sticking to her beneath a gaping tear in the material right down the centre. He can remember his knuckles pressed against the warm skin of her stomach, the blade of his knife lost in her body. He reaches out an arm, pointing to the hole in her shirt, and shakes his head in disbelief.

Crisp watches his face as he struggles to comprehend what is going on. She doesn’t know what to say to him, she doesn’t how to explain this. She doesn’t know how he is going to react. She remembers the fear and determination in his eyes as he lurched towards her with the knife. All he had cared about was making sure she died. Even when he was blinded by pain, when he was unable to breathe, when he had only trickles of blood sifting through his system, his only focus had been making sure she went with him.

Her smile falters for a second, dropping from her lips as her own sense of fear crystalizes, “Nick,” She whispers his name softly as she slowly realises where Billy had come from when he crashed through the door, mortally wounded and driven by pure adrenaline. She clears her throat and tries to straighten up, her eyes shining as she searches Billy’s face for clues, “Nick – Doctor Ralfson - is he okay? Did he get hurt?”

Billy blinks, his face contorting with confusion. He had driven a knife into this woman’s belly, at this moment the pair of them should have been starting to rot on the floor of this shit hole apartment. Instead, they are upright, untouched, and she wants to know if the man who had been holding her captive for over a decade was alright. “Your creepy fucking doctor mate is fine, last I saw him he was safe and fucking sound.” He shakes his head again, “But you got some fucking explaining to do.”

A smile of relief erupts across Crisp’s face. She glances down at her stomach, pulling up the material of her t-shirt to reveal the same pattern of flesh and blood across her abdomen. A large wedge of untouched pale skin lined by maroon liquid that is starting to crust. She reaches down and draws a single finger across it, smearing the colour and blurring the lines. She looks back up to meet Billy’s eyes, and the smile is beaming from her face.

“I seem to remember you’re the one who stuck the knife in me.” Billy is taken aback by the light tone of her voice, but the world is still spinning for him and he wonders for a moment if he’s having a fever dream. Her smile softens, she can see how disoriented he is, and she’s not surprised. She knows she has ripped him back from death, that his entire body must feel alien to him. “How are you feeling?”

“I’m very fucking confused darling, that’s how I’m feeling.” He growls, and he doesn’t know how to navigate the situation. He was dying, and now he is not. She was dying and now she is not. He murdered her, and somehow that has been undone. The evidence of it all is painted across the apartment.

“You might want to sit down -” She says, taking a step forward and raising an arm, as if to guide him to one of the sofas. He takes an abrupt step back, recoiling from her approach.

“I’m alright standin’” He grunts, even as he staggers slightly to catch his balance. Crisp shakes her head.

“You’re not. You’ll feel much better if you just sit.” Her voice is flat, but soft. Billy glares at her.

“Did you dose me?” Billy doesn’t know how or when she would have done it, but he feels drugged. His whole body feels different and the entire world has a surreal edge to it, as if he has to wait for it to catch up every time he moves. Crisp takes a step towards him, closing the gap between them, her hands cautiously raised in front of her.

“I didn’t give you anything.” Crisp tells him firmly. Billy finds himself shifting beneath her gaze, feeling exposed. He can remember the amount of blood that came out of her.

“Why ain’t you bolted for the door?” Billy exhales, his eyes narrowing. She purses her lips and considers him for a second.

“Are you going to try and kill me again?” She asks.

“I ain’t decided yet.” Billy snaps back. She grins, a dazzling smile erupting on her face, as if she is in on a joke that he’s excluded from.

“I’ll wait for you to make up your mind then, I’ve got nowhere to be.”

“We were dead.” He spits the words out.

“We weren’t.” She replies simply, “I wouldn’t let that happen.”

“What the fuck does that even mean?” Billy growls, and he raises a hand to his head, feeling the room spin. Again, Crisp takes a step forward, and she is close enough now that Billy can see the specks of red on her neck, his own blood.

“How much did Nick tell you?” Crisp asks him, her eyes wide and earnest.

“He showed me that fucked up video of you killing that doctor.” Billy growls, and Crisp feels the usual stab of guilt in her chest.

She pauses for a second, taking in a shaky breath, “Did he show you anything else? Any of the tests?”

Billy shakes his head, and it feels as if his brain is slowly rolling over in his skull. He grits his teeth and squeezes his eyes shut, hoping that the dizziness will pass. “The snuff film was enough.”

“It wasn’t.” Crisp says plainly as she reaches her hand out, settling it tentatively on his shoulder. Her touch is like crackling static against his skin, and Billy flinches.

He glares down at her, and watches as the crystal blue of her eyes start swimming in front of him, becoming lost in a glaze of milky white. He feels terror crash over him and take control of his body, the primal part of his brain demanding that he fight. He wrenches Crisps’ hand from where she had settled it against his skin, his hand reaching out to grasp the hem of her t-shirt that encircles her neck. His grip is like a vice as he pulls her roughly forward, the material bunching tightly beneath his fingers.

“What the fuck are you trying?” He growls, his words loaded with threat. Crisp blinks, feeling his hot breath hitting her face, and the crystal blue of her eyes reappears as the mist dissipates.

“You’re dehydrated.” She whispers, her voice soft, “You’re hypoglycaemic. You need to eat and drink.”

“What did you do to me?” He snarls, his heart is pounding in his chest, hammering against his sternum, reminding him that he is alive when he should not be. He is searching her face for evidence of malice, to see if she planned to turn him into the same twisted, necrotic corpse he had seen on that video.

“I helped your body do what it needed to do to keep you alive.” Her voice is low, as if this is a secret for only him to hear, “I clotted your blood, I cross-linked your collagen, I forced your bone marrow to spit out erythrocytes. You didn’t die because I wouldn’t let you.”

“You’re a glorified _fucking_ doctor?” Billy questions. He watches as the expression on Crisps’ face changes, a strange expression of pain seeping into her features. Her eyes shine, and the weight of regret hangs heavily in the space between them.

“A girl can dream, right?”


	10. Air Hunger

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Massive content warning for suicide/ suicidal behaviour.

_Forgive me, Hera, I cannot stay  
Cut out my tongue, there is nothing to save  
Love me, oh Lord  
He threw me away  
He laughed at my sins, in his arms I must stay_

* * *

_It’s similar to that feeling she had when she held her breath, when she tried to see how long she could go without oxygen. She felt pain in the base of her lungs, craving that rush of air, and eventually her body made the decision for her. She opened her mouth, she greedily gulped in oxygen, and the feeling passed._

_That is how she feels now, lying on her back with her heart silent and still beneath her rib cage. Instead of pain in her lungs, the pain is everywhere, her entire body screaming at her to let the blood come rushing in, to feed her cells, to stop them dying. But she refuses, she continues to stifle the fizzling electricity that would allow her heart muscles to contract. She tries to focus on the idea that the pain and desperation will pass, that surely her blood starved brain will allow her to slip into unconsciousness, that everything will go dark and her decision will be final._

_But the lights stay on. Instead of the relative ease of unconsciousness she is painfully aware of every sensation in her body, the crackling inside her skull as her neurons fade away, numbness and tingling in the tips of her toes, and then rolling, crippling cramps in her arms and leg._

_She should be in a haze of unconsciousness, but her body is forcing her to stay present, to witness what she is doing to herself._

_She cries out in pain as her body forces her to act, as the pain engulfs her, as the craving for oxygen and nutrients overwhelms every cell she has. She feels the spark as her nerves depolarize and the muscles contract, and she feels her heart start to pump frantically, compensating for the deprivation that she had just needlessly inflicted on her body._

_She blinks and the milky glaze of her eyes dissipates, only to be replaced by a rim of tears._

_The next attempt is more refined. She knows now that she can’t simply stop her heart beating, that she can’t shut down important physiological functions without her own body turning on her and demanding that they start back up. The intervention has to be more direct, she can’t simply stop the machine, she has to throw a wrench in the gears._

_The blood clot is small, it is innocuous, but then again most are. They appear harmless until they lodge themselves somewhere important._

_She stands in the centre of her room, her eyes glazed white but her face is set with determination. She feels the small bundle of platelets, held together with a neat mesh of fibrin, spinning through her circulation. She inhales deeply as it courses towards her superior cerebellar artery, bracing herself for the fallout._

_She knows what she is doing. She knows that cerebellar infarcts have the worst mortality rate, she knows that she should lose consciousness quick enough that she will not have the option to intervene, and she just hopes that no one comes to find her, that she is not left locked inside her body with only the movement of her eyes to communicate._

_The insidious little capsule spirals through her blood and lodges itself perfectly at the base of her brain stem. It starts with a wave of nausea, as the blood flow suddenly ceases and her brain senses the impending starvation. Her stomach lurches violently as the dizziness descends, and her limbs give out beneath her._

_She hits the floor, landing on her hands and knees. She feels her abdominal muscles contract again and she retches, but she can’t hear the sound of her stomach contents hitting the floor. Her hearing has gone, and blinding pain starts to creep across the inside of her skull. Finally, it is happening, finally she is dying._

_This time it isn’t like she is holding her breath, this time the reflex is different. As if she has stuck her hand into a fire and she is forcing her body to hold it there, every cell is telling her to pull it back, and instead she grits her teeth and watches the skin peel from the bone. As she kneels on the floor, her vision narrowing, feeling the impulse taking over. She can feel her body urging her to dissolve the clot, to flood her brain with blood and oxygen and glucose._

_It gets to the point where every muscle she has is tensed with exertion, holding herself back from saving her own life. She grits her teeth, fighting through the unbearable pain in her head and the rolling nausea. She cannot think of anything else, she cannot risk distracting herself by numbing the pain, all she can do is focus on is holding together the small bundle of clotted blood at the base of her brain._

_There’s a point where it feels as if her head is splitting open, jagged edges sawing through the thick rim of her skull. She cries out, a mixture of frustration, exhaustion and agony, but she cannot hear her own voice. She feels it happen, she feels herself pull her hand out of the flame, she feels the tangle of platelets and fibrin dissolve and the blood rush back to her brain._

_She lies down on the floor as choked sobs rack through her, and ever so slowly she starts to hear herself cry, as she reluctantly repairs the ischemic damage she has just inflicted on her own brain._

_She knows now that she is more trapped than she could have ever imagined._

* * *

Billy looks at the woman who sits across the table from him, her stark hair damp and tinged in patches with an odd peach colour, the over-sized Mickey Mouse t-shirt she is wearing hangs off her frame, and she stares back at him expectantly. He can feel people staring at the pair of them as they walk past the window of the small diner, their silhouettes displayed through the rain streaked glass. She looks as if she is an alien that has just landed on this planet and is doing a poor impression of a human being.

“You feeling better?” Crisp asks as Billy shovels a forkful of bacon into his mouth. He doesn’t look any less conspicuous himself. The rucksack that had been left at the safe house had two changes of clothing in it, one of which was now saturated with blood. The dashing denim shorts and Mickey Mouse combination looked only marginally less strange on Crisp’s slight frame. This left Billy with the blood drenched clothes he had been shot in.

He grunts and nods in response to Crisp’s question as he reaches out and picks up his mug of coffee, gulping it down. He has never been so ravenous in his life, it feels as if with every bite his stomach deepens and demands more. A small smile appears on Crisp’s lips, and she reaches down with a fork to her own plate, prodding the stacked pancakes in front her.

“Like a new fucking man.” Billy states through a mouth full of food.

“There’s no better medicine than a good breakfast.” Crisp murmurs as she tears at the edge of her pancake, raising a small torn piece to her lips.

“I think you’d give it a run for its money.” Billy murmurs, leaning back in the booth and draping an arm across the back of his seat. He watches as she smirks, chewing cautiously on her own food. “We got to get you off the street though, you stick out like a sore thumb.”

Crisp looks down to survey her appearance. She is a grown woman dressed like a child, “Do you think they’re looking for me?” She asks.

“Vought?” Billy raises his eyebrows, “’Course, why wouldn’t they be? Unless you got a tracker stuck up your ass like all the other supes.”

“It’s safe to say I do not.” Crisp sighs, “I’m not a _supe_.”

Billy watches the obvious discomfort on her face as she says the word, her eyes trained on the plate in front of her. He takes in a deep breath and frowns, “Why not?”

Her eyes dart up and widen as they meet his, surprised at the lack of challenge and the seemingly sincere question. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, it seems like they missed a fucking trick keeping you locked in a basement all this time.” 

Crisp averts her gaze again, “I didn’t do as I was told.” Billy can see the skin along her jawline shift as she clenches her teeth, “They kept dangling the promise of joining the Seven in front of me like a carrot. It was never a convincing strategy.”

“Didn’t fancy being wonder woman?”

“I didn’t want to be someone’s fucking weapon.”

Billy can remember the video he watched the night before. The stark room, the locked door, Crisp clinging to the small animal in her arms as if it was the most precious thing in the world. He feels his stomach tighten, and he’s not sure where the sudden pang of pity has come from. He had been so focused on the twisted and deformed corpse that he hadn’t taken the time to realise what a pathetic life this woman had been living. He clears his throat, “They ever try other strategies?” He asks, “They ever try the stick?”

Slowly Crisp returns his gaze, and he feels the muscles in his back tense. All he can read on her face is pain. The shrill tinkling of a bell rings out through the diner, but Crisp’s gaze doesn’t flinch. Even as the clack of heels approaches their table she keeps her eyes trained on Billy.

“What the fuck happened last night?” The hissed question forces Billy to look away.

“Mornin’ Susan,” He mumbles, turning in the booth to look up at her. Susan’s entire body is clenched tight, the anger she is trying to contain is making her shake. “Looks like you need a coffee.”

“I need to mainline fucking Xanax after the scene I’ve just come from.” Her eyes sweep across Billy, before darting to the frozen image of Crisp sitting opposite. She can see the blood caked onto Billy’s trench coat and the faint hints of red that have stained Crisp’s stark white hair. “…or just walked into. What the hell did you do Butcher?”

“You bring what I asked?” Billy ignores the question and instead eyes the large traveller bag that is clutched in Susan’s hand. Her scowl deepens, and she hastily shoves it into the booth next to him.

“Next time you plan to drain someone’s entire fucking blood volume maybe bring your own change of clothes”, Susan snarls, placing two hands on the table and leaning in close to Billy, “and don’t do it in a CIA safe house.”

“Thanks for the advice, I’ll keep that in mind.” Billy smirks.

“This isn’t a fucking joke Butcher,” Susan’s teeth are clenched, and it is taking every ounce of willpower she has not to scream, “You were supposed to talk to the informant, you weren’t supposed to paint the walls with his god damned blood.”

“Wait, what?” Crisp murmurs, her breath catching in her throat. Billy catches her eye and shakes his head in her direction.

“That ain’t his blood.”

“Well someone was gutted in that safe house.” Susan snarls, and Crisp’s hand moves reflexively to her stomach.

“Well, after me and the doc had words I got into a bit of… _situation_... with some hired gun who made the mistake of shooting me,” Billy gestures towards Crisp, “When I got back Crispy here patched me right up. Case closed.”

Susan glances towards Crisp, who nods hastily in agreement. She narrows her eyes, “That was your blood? All of it?”

“Every drop.” Billy says with a shrug.

“Bullshit.” Susan growls, “You’d be dead.”

“What can I say, Crisp’s a whizz with first aid kit.”

Crisp doesn’t fully understand the dynamic playing out in front of her, the lack of trust, the partial information and masked agendas. She knows that neither of these two people have her best interests at heart, but an arbitrary sense of loyalty has settled over her since she gripped Billy’s hand and forced his heart to keep beating.

“I swear to god Butcher,” Susan leans in closer, her voice dropping, “If I find out that you’ve murdered a Vought employee, I will rain down fire and brimstone on your ass. There won’t be a single god forsaken rock on this fucking planet that you can crawl under to escape.” 

“He says he didn’t hurt him.” Crisp says quietly, a statement she desperately hopes is true.

“If you are both lying to me,” Susan hisses between her teeth, “you are fucked.”

“When have I ever lied to you?” Billy grins broadly, but Susan’s steely façade doesn’t crack, “Lighten up, I had a chat with the doctor, he had tighter security than I expected and I got… shot - I didn’t drag the fucker home with me.”

Susan exhales slowly and closes her eyes momentarily, collecting herself, trying to reign in the rage that is surging through her veins. She straightens up, pulling at the edges of her shirt to smooth down the material, taking a moment to examine Billy’s appearance. The frayed and singed fabric of his trench coat and the blood stains on his shirt suggest he is telling the truth, but the volume of blood Susan had witnessed at the apartment still puts her on edge, “Do you need medical attention?”

“Nah, I’m fine,” Billy murmurs, waving off Susan’s forced concern, “Like I said Crisp took care of it.”

Susan glances back towards Crisp, who sits holding her hands awkwardly in her lap, clearly uncomfortable with the mounting tension in the diner. “That’s some trick, fixing up a gunshot wound - they teach you that at Vought?”

Crisp nods, and she can see Billy smirking in the periphery, as if they have an inside joke, “They taught me a few things.” She says curtly.

“I’ve no fucking clue what the pair of you are up to,” Susan groans, “Just tell me you got something useful out of whatever disaster happened last night.”

There is a loud clatter as Billy hauls a closed laptop onto the surface of the table. It is covered in smudged fingerprints outlined in his blood, the evidence of the previous night staining everything he touches. “How’s this for useful?” Billy beams, pushing it towards Susan triumphantly.

She raises her eyebrows, “What the fuck is it?”

“It’s the doc’s laptop, got a shit tonne of stuff about Crispy on it. I’d try to crack it open myself but it’s got this weird face thing on it and I don’t trust it – but I figure you’d have a spook tucked away somewhere who’d be up for the challenge.”

“Weird face thing?” Susan narrows her eyes, unimpressed and impatient.

“Facial recognition. That security shit.” Billy growls.

“That’s fabulous Butcher, but I feel like you’re maybe skipping over a very important piece of information…”, Billy glances towards Crisp and raises his eyebrows, feigning ignorance and confusion with a shrug. Susan clenches her jaw, wrapping her fingers into a fist, “Is she contagious? Is she fucking dangerous?”

“What? Crispy here?” He lets out a laugh, but Crisp feels her stomach drop. Billy meets her eyes, and the knowing glint in them puts her on edge. She recognises the feeling, the power shifting out of balance. “She’s harmless. Wouldn’t hurt a fly.”

“Well that makes perfect sense.” Susan growls and rolls her eyes, “They just labelled her as a biological weapon for fun?”

“She ain’t contagious.” Billy murmurs. “The doc wanted her out of there and knew that would light a fire under your ass,” Susan studies his face, the way that the muscles tense around his eyes, the curl at the corner of his lips. She knows he is keeping information from her, she has spent enough time with the man to recognise when he is lying, he never made much of an effort to hide it. She shakes her head and reaches out, grabbing the blood-stained laptop from the table.

“Fine.” She spits the words out, hoping that whatever secrets he was keeping from her would be revealed soon enough, hopefully filed away on the machine in her grip. “But I’m holding you personally responsible for any shit she gets up to.”

“I’m not going to ‘get up to’ anything,” Crisp interjects, her skin crawling at the sound of being talked about as if she is not in the room. Susan’s eyes dart back to the woman, almost surprised to hear her speak. “I’m just grateful to be out of there.”

“You hear that,” Billy grins broadly at Crisp, “She’s on her best fucking behaviour. You got nothin’ to worry about.”

* * *

_All she has is time, and she spends it sampling different pathologies, different diseases, each time stepping abruptly back when her body is shutting down. She can riddle herself with tumours, she can fill her circulatory system with clots, she can rupture her aorta, but every time she feels that urgent pull to repair herself. The virus that has let Chris skirt close enough to death to taste it, is the same thing that is ripping her away from the edge when she gets too close._

_Chris had grown dependent on something for the convenience that it offered, and lost sight of the obvious options all around her. She sits cross legged on the bed, staring at the clock on the wall opposite, and as the incessant ticking reminds her of her seemingly endless existence, she finally realises her error. She realises that she has other avenues of escape, ones that do not rely on her ability to forcibly change her own biology._

_The fluorescent light casts a reflection on the transparent screen that covers the clock, and Chris inhales deeply as a new plan crystalizes in her mind. She springs from her bed, bending over to wrap her hands around the metal bed frame, and she pulls. The bed moves abruptly across the floor, the scraping echoing through the room. She gives it another tug and it moves again. She grits her teeth and with one continuous movement drags the bed across the full length of the room, to the wall that she has spent countless hours staring at._

_Without hesitation Chris clambers on top of the mattress, and grins as she looks up at the wall next to her. The clock is within her reach. She stands on her toes, leaning forward, and carefully plucks it from where it has been hanging on the wall. She holds the machine in her hand, staring down at the bold red hand that moves around its face, taunting her, reminding her of the arbitrary passage of time. Her knuckles blanch as her grip on the edge of the clock tightens. She raises it above her head and with every ounce of strength she has left in her body she hurls the clock against the wall opposite._

_The clock strikes against the white coated concrete and splinters, falling the ground. Chris leaps from the bed to where it lies on the ground, a white splinter crossing the transparent screen. She picks it up, and smashes it down against the wall again, feeling the glass screen shatter beneath the force. The shards scatter, littering the floor around her feet._

_She pulls the clock back, looking down at the exposed mechanism, the hands twitching in place. She tosses it to one side and examines the glass shards beneath her. Most are small, sharp fragments that threaten to cut into her exposed skin. She bends down, reaching out her hand, her fingers brushing through the jagged glass._

_She finds what she needs, a shard that is long enough to hold in her hand, that is pointed and sharp enough to cut through skin. As she picks it up, the edges slicing into her palm, she is so relieved she could cry._

_She doesn’t hesitate, there is an urgency that is pulsing in her ears, a clawing desperation that forces her hand. She raises the shard in her right hand and reaches out her left arm, palm to the ceiling. She brings the glass down swiftly and deliberately into the exposed flesh of her forearm, gasping as the pointed end stabs through the skin and muscle, going deep._

_She grits her teeth, feeling the pain surge through her arm, the skin of her left hand prickling and tingling. She still has a solid grip on the shard of glass which is deeply embedded in her arm, and with a sharp intake of breath she pulls, dragging the glass down towards her body, watching as she splits the skin from her wrist to the curve of her elbow._

_She grunts as she retracts to glass, her eyes widening as she watches the blood surge from the lengthy, deep wound she has just inflicted. She knows from the spray that erupts from her wrist that she has hit an artery, whilst the solid, thick pooling of blood that bubbles up from the wound and coats her entire arm is a clear indication that several veins have been severed._

_She feels sick. The wave of nausea hits as she hears the blood strike against the floor, cascading freely with no intention of stopping. She can smell it. She staggers backwards, her wide eyes still fixed to the long, gaping incision. She feels dizzy, and she knows she needs to sit down. She bends over, reaching out with her right hand to find the floor, and crumples against it._

_She can’t feel her left hand._

_She pulls herself towards the wall, her legs scraping against the small grains of glass that litter the floor, and she slumps against the cool surface. She takes in a deep breath as she curls her left arm against the body. She feels a coldness spread across her face as a warmth spreads across her stomach and chest, blood spreading rapidly through the fibres of the material._

_And that’s when she feels it, in the quiet of the room, with the absence of the ticking clock. She feels nothing. She feels the absence of that reflex to piece her arm back together. That overwhelming urge to fix herself. It is gone. Instead she sits there with her blue eyes illuminated by the fluorescent lights, and she bleeds. She feels the coldness of the blood loss, the stillness of death, and nothing is there to interrupt it._

_She smiles._

_There is a sudden noise that pulls her back to the present, that pulls her away from the comforting feeling of death creeping up on her. She turns her head slowly and she hears the sound again, the sound of metal scraping against the floor._

_She realises that the bed is moving. She realises that she has managed to block the entrance to the room with the frame, the bed sitting in front of a door that hasn’t been opened for a seemingly endless expanse of time. Now it is open, she can see the edge of the door striking against the bed as someone behind it pushes, desperate to gain access._

_She watches the struggle with a strange detachment as the seeping cold spreads across every inch of her body. The room feels distant, as if the shouts she hears from behind the door are coming from the end of a long tunnel, the volume lost in the distance they have travelled._

_The bed moves sharply across the room as the door is pushed fully open, “Chris, Jesus christ.” The words are muffled, and she squints towards the figure that enters the room. The person who enters is wearing a yellow hazmat suit that almost glows beneath the stark fluorescent lights, their face obscured by a heavy respirator. She blinks several times, trying to steady her gaze as the person clambers over the bed, scrambling across the room towards her._

_Suddenly there are heavy hands on her shoulders, thick with latex. She looks up through the thick transparent screen of the respirator, seeing a familiar pair of hazel eyes staring down at her, panicked and filled with grief. For a second Chris forgets herself, forgets her surroundings, forgets the slow crawl of death up her spine, and she smiles again._

_“Nick.” She whispers his name, and her quiet voice is filled with joy. She reaches out with her right arm towards him, her hand landing on the plastic of his suit._

_“What have you done?” He gasps as he crouches down in front of her. His hands land on her shoulders, spinning her away from the wall to face him. She is covered in a thick coating of blood, already clotting in large gelatinous clumps across the floor. Her face is somehow even whiter than before, no flush of pink on her cheeks or lips, just a pale expanse of skin coated in beads of sweat._

_“I can’t -” Chris starts to speak, suddenly realising how difficult it is to string thoughts together. “I can’t do this anymore.”_

_“Chris, listen to me,” There is fear in his voice, giving his words a sharp edge, “You need to stop the bleeding. You need to stop it now.”_

_Chris shakes her head slowly, but as she does this the world seems to move around her. She feels heavy, “You need to stop it.” She repeats his words back to him._

_“Chris, please!” His desperation breaks her heart, but she wants to sleep. She slumps forward towards him as she gives into the craving for sleep that tugs behind her eyes, her head crinkling the plastic as it settles against his chest._

_He releases her shoulders and his arms travel around her, finding the open wound on her forearm. The stream of blood has slowed, the surges of crimson liquid mimicking each beat of her heart and her weakening pulse. He clamps his hands around the wound, stemming the flow, pushing down hard against the torn flesh._

_He turns his head to look back at the doorway, his respirator partly obstructing his view. Professor Dayton stands behind him in her crisp white lab coat, her expression a mixture of apprehension and confusion. Her hand hovers over the frame of the door, uncertain of what to do. Nick can feel terror rise up in his chest as he feels Chris’ pulse grow faint and thready beneath the tips of his fingers._

_“Don’t just stand there!” He bellows, “Help me! She’s dying!”_


	11. Sequelae

_Torn down, full of aching_   
_Somehow our youth would take the blame_   
_Worn out, the way we let it stay_

_Taught how to celebrate it_   
_All out, I'd replicate your pain_   
_Climb down, if only for a taste_

* * *

Nick looks down at his hands as they noticeably tremble, and he curls his fingers into fists in an attempt to stop them. He doesn’t know what is going to happen next, he doesn’t know if she is safe, he doesn’t know if he is safe. The looming unknown stretches out in front of him, and there is no comfort in it. He looks up from where he is seated in an expansive hallway of Vought’s central office.

“Nicolas.” He hears his name being called and his head snaps around, seeing Madelyn Stillwell standing in the tall doorway opposite him. He hastily rises to his feet, the fear evident in his expression as he clears his throat, “Thank you for joining us.”

“Madelyn.” He says her name curtly and watches her step back, offering him space to enter the room. He cautiously steps forward and walks into the large boardroom. He has only been here a handful of times in his career, he can remember presenting the discovery and sequencing of the Volhard virus, the excited faces of board members on the day he announced Christiane’s survival and containment at their dark site. He is used to entering this room to see stern, older men staring back at him. Today it is different.

Today the room only has one occupant. He is tall with blonde hair, a strong jaw and broad shoulders. The skin-tight blue suit is automatically recognisable, and as Nick meets his eyes he feels his stomach drop.

“I’m sure you know John,” Madelyn’s voice chimes as she closes the door behind her, leaving the three of them in the wide room, lined with tall windows that look out over the cityscape of New York.

“We haven’t been formally introduced,” Nicolas states, and John lets out a small chuckle, a wide smile spreading across his face. It seems wrong though, it feels disingenuous, the smile doesn’t quite meet his eyes.

“Oh, no need,” He laughs with a shake of his head, “Madelyn’s told me all about you and the work that you’ve been doing, Dr Ralfson. It’s all been very exciting.”

Nick watches as Madelyn walks around him, stepping over to the large V shaped table that John stands next to, turning and leaning against the edge, crossing her arms across her chest. “I think you know why I asked you here today,” She sighs. Nick nods, but his eyes linger over the imposing figure of John.

“We still haven’t found her.”

“That’s not why.” She shakes her head, “Although yes, that’s still a pretty damn big concern of mine.”

“The break in.” Nick murmurs, returning his gaze to Madelyn. She nods, her shoulders tensing.

“Yes, Nicolas, the break in. The fact that you have lost highly sensitive, confidential data to god knows who.” Her words are sharp, but Nick is far more disturbed by what she does not say. She does not mention the man who died on the floor of his study, now a mere foot note in an inconvenient experience.

“I don’t know what you want me to say Madelyn,” Nick shrugs half-heartedly, “He tied me up and held me at gunpoint, what was I supposed to do?”

“Try and stop him.” Madelyn hisses.

“Because that was an option.” Nick mutters sarcastically.

“It is always an option.” Madelyn says through gritted teeth. She shakes her head, as if trying to rid herself of the frustration that is gripping her, “It doesn’t matter though – We’re not here to scold you.”

Madelyn reaches out to where a small plastic TV remote sits on the large V shaped desk. She picks it up and points it to the large array of screens that line the wall next to the door. With a small flicker images suddenly appear, all of the same person, but from different angles, in different places. An unmistakable scowl on his face.

“Is this the man who broke into your house?” Madelyn asks. Nick clears his throat, recognising the dark eyes, the simmering anger, the scruffy beard. He nods his head slowly.

“Yes, have you - ” Nick starts, confused as to how they could have tracked him down so quickly. It had been less than a day since Vought’s security team had detangled him from his office chair. “Have you been following him? Do you know him?”

“William Butcher.” John’s voice suddenly joins the conversation, “His wife used to work for the company, lovely girl - but when she went missing… well… her husband went off the deep end.”

“He’s dangerous, Nick.” Madelyn interjects, “He’s dangerous, and he has Christiane.”

“I know.” There is a pain to Nick’s voice. He can remember the look on Billy’s face after he watched the recording, his realisation of just how dangerous Chris could be. He remembers the words he choked out of his mouth through a thick coating of blood.

_“I got someone I got to take with me.”_

“Listen, Nicolas…” John starts, taking a step towards Nick, “Can I call you Nicolas?” Nick narrows his eyes, unsure at the tone of his voice, but he nods slowly, “Listen Nicolas. Madlyn knows that someone blew the whistle on the CRISPR project-”

“What, I-” Nick starts, feeling his chest tighten with panic. John shakes his head and walks over to Nick, making a soft shushing noise as he reaches out, placing a hand on Nick’s shoulder.

“Shh, it’s okay.” John stops him, and Nick can feel the grip on his shoulder tighten. He clenches his teeth, looking up at the bizarre smile on John’s face, disingenuous and sinister, “We can waste time with denial and the usual stories… but your dear Christiane is in the hands of a man who will do anything to hurt this company. He is clearly not working alone, he has connections. And I promise you, he will hurt her. He will destroy her. And you are the only person who can stop that from happening.”

“I don’t know what you want me to say…” Nick chokes out. John’s fingertips are biting into the flesh between his shoulder blade and collarbone, reminding Nick that with a simple squeeze he could snap the bones into useless fragments.

“I think you do.” John says with a nod, raising his eyebrows, “You blew the whistle and you put her in this situation, it’s your fault she’s in danger. Keep her safe, Nick. Tell us who you told, and we can put things right.”

* * *

_Chris’ eyes flutter open, light flooding her field of vision, stark and fluorescent. She winces, groaning as she slips into consciousness. The room around her is both familiar and unfamiliar at the same time, the white tiles and bare walls are the same she has been looking at her entire life, but the bed she is lying on is different, the machines that surround her are new, the sheets that wrap around her body feel unusual. She feels a chill travel through her as she turns her head on the pillow, and her eyes lock on the dark red bag that dangles from a metallic hook next to her bed._

_The grief that hits her is hard, and she feels as if the breath is sucked out of her lungs. There is a dull ache in her left forearm, and she raises her it in front of her to inspect the tightly wrapped bandages that hide the damage. Chris lets out a deep, guttural wail that escapes her throat almost involuntarily, her despair spilling out of her. She is alive, she is fucking alive. She feels sobs rack through her, her body shaking as she realises she is still breathing, her heart is still beating, she is still trapped in endless white rooms._

_Tears spill down her face as she reaches out and attempts to pull out the needle and thin plastic tubing that is feeding someone else’s blood into her right arm. A prickling sensation is cast over her left hand, and she grits her teeth with determination, trying to get her fingers to co-operate with her brain, trying to close her fingertips around the cannula, but they won’t move for her. Instead the pain of torn tendons and nerves burst across her left forearm, and she lets out another anguished wail of frustration._

_She refuses to fix this. She refuses to let her body forget. Instead she leans over and pins down the tubing on her mattress with her bandaged forearm and wrenches her right arm furiously away. The needle tears out of her skin, spilling scarlet drops across the crisp white sheets._

_She twists in the bed, pulling the sheets off her, sitting upright and pushing herself onto the edge of the mattress. She feels a wave of dizziness wash over her, her head feeling heavy, as if her brain is sloshing around inside her skull. Her vision starts darkening at the edges, and she closes her eyes momentarily, waiting for her blood pressure to catch up with the movement._

_“Chris, what are you doing? You need to rest!” She hears a voice and slowly opens her eyes, turning to face the direction it has come from. Nick is standing in an open doorway, hastily putting on large latex gloves, covering the last part of his skin not already covered by the neon yellow hazmat suit. Her face crumples as she meets his eyes, and she shakes her head._

_“I shouldn’t be here.” She chokes the words out as she pushes herself up off the mattress with her right hand, her left arm held close against her body. Her feet unsteadily pad across the floor, trying to find some sense of equilibrium as her knees threaten to give out. She is not used to this weakness, it is in each of her joints, making her limbs feel heavy and the air feel dense._

_“Hey, hey, hey,” Nick’s voice is soft and soothing, and suddenly he is next to her and his arms are around her. She feels the material of his suit crinkle beneath her body weight, and she relaxes into him, feeling sobs ripple through her body, “I got you.” He directs her back to the bed, and Chris reluctantly reaches out to the mattress, shifting her body weight onto it, “You’re still in hypovolemic shock, you lost over a third of your blood volume.”_

_“Not quite enough then.” She whispers._

_“You’re clearly in pain.” Nick murmurs. Chris nods curtly._

_“I know.” She grunts, as she pushes herself back further on the mattress, out of Nick’s grip. He perches on the edge of the bedframe, watching her try to navigate movement with one functioning arm._

_“You don’t have to be, why are you putting yourself through this?” Nick asks. Chris looks at him and falls silent, a mixture of disbelief and resentment on her tear streaked face. She clenches her jaw and takes in a deep breath._

_“Where were you?” The words seep out through gritted teeth, and Nick feels the crushing weight of his guilt collapsing around him._

_“What-” He starts, but he can barely engage with what she is asking him, he can’t face the reality of her situation, “What do you mean?”_

_“I mean, where **were** you?” She whispers, feeling tears well up again in her eyes. _

_“Chris, they took me off the project after the incident. I didn’t have a say in any of it,“ He watches as she starts shaking and looks away from him, “I tried to get back to you, I did. But they told me you were doing well, they told me you were making progress.”_

_He watches as her lower lip trembles, and he is stricken by the difference in the girl in front of him. When he had last seen her, she had been defiant and self-possessed, she had been terrifying and dangerous. Now she is cowering on her bed, her entire body shaking, feeble and wounded. She looks like the child who greeted him when she first arrived at Vought. “I was alone.” She confesses this to him as if it is a deeply held shame. Nick hesitates, narrowing his eyes, afraid of understanding what she is trying to communicate._

_“What?” He whispers, his eyes shining._

_“I was alone. I was stuck in that room, and I was alone and I-” She takes in a deep, shaky breath as she repeats this. “I missed you.”_

_Nick can’t find words to express the feeling that is expanding in his chest. He has to look away from her momentarily, staring down through the Perspex visor of his suit. All he wants to do in this moment is reach out and hold her, tell her he is here now and that everything is okay, that she never has to be alone again. It is promise he cannot keep, and it is a gesture he cannot make without layers of plastic and latex between them. He clears his throat and looks back up at her._

_“I missed you too, kid.” He manages to choke out, giving her a forced reassuring smile. “And I can’t stand the idea that you’re in pain right now, so please -” He blinks, trying to force back the angry tears that are brimming in his eyes, “please let me get some fluids in you, and get some rest. Please.”_

_Chris watches the strange heart-break and anger bubbling beneath the surface of Nick’s expression, and she knows that he is telling her the truth, that he is holding back his rage for her benefit, to reassure instead of reinforce her fear and loneliness. She purses her lips together, and slowly nods. She pushes herself back in the bed, deciding to let Nick attempt to hold together her failing body to assuage his own sense of guilt._

_Nick’s hands are shaking as he pulls the covers around her, as he retrieves a fresh needle and slides it into the crook of her right arm. He is taking in deep, measured breaths, trying his best to remain calm as he hangs a fresh bag of intravenous fluids, unscrews the cap of the cannula and connects the two. Chris watches with quiet detachment as he works on her, a strange sense of hurry and urgency to his movements._

_“I’ll be back.” He says quietly as he bends over her, taping the cannula in place against her skin. She nods, and Nick clears his throat, “I promise.”_

_“Okay.” She whispers._

_Nick strides towards the door, opening it hastily and bursting through into the airlock on the other side. He works quickly to remove the protective equipment, snapping his stained latex gloves off his hands, unzipping the back of the suit and allowing it to fall away from his body. He steps out of it and throws it all into the large biohazard bin that sits in the corner._

_He steps out into the corridor and doesn’t hesitate, walking purposefully along the hallway whilst smoothing down the ruffles in his shirt. The image of Chris’ face, sheer white with a thin layer of sweat, as her blood pooled around them, is at the forefront of his mind. The amount she may have suffered in his absence terrifies him, and makes his head swim with violent thoughts. His eyes are narrow and trained on the passing doors as he turns and strides down each corridor. When he finds the door, his hands are still trembling from the adrenaline surging through his system. He reaches out and turns the handle, forcing it open._

_“Nicolas!” The surprised chirp greets him as he barrels into the small office. In front of him is a narrow desk, behind which is Professor Dayton, whose eyes dart away from her computer screen to look up at him. She can see the redness of his cheeks, the fury shining in his eyes, “Is everything okay?”_

_“No, Martha. Everything is not fucking okay. What did you do to her?” He bellows, and Professor Dayton’s face drops. She reaches up, gesturing behind him._

_“Maybe we should have this conversation in private.” Her voice is low, and Nicolas pushes the door closed with every ounce of his strength, the slam reverberating around the room and echoing down the corridor, “Thank you.”_

_“You told me she was doing okay. You told me she was making progress. She cut her fucking wrists!”_

_“Would you like to take a seat?” She asks calmly, gesturing to the chair that sits to one side of her desk._

_“I don’t want a fucking seat, I want a fucking explanation.”_

_“A lot has happened since you left.” Professor Dayton states plainly. Nick lets out a laugh of disbelief._

_“I didn’t leave,” He hisses, “You tossed me onto another project and cut me out. That’s not the same as leaving.”_

_“You were too close Nicolas, you always have been. You couldn’t do what needed to be done.”_

_“What ‘needed to be done’ Martha?” There’s a primal part of Nick that wants to launch himself across the desk and strangle her, “Solitary fucking confinement?!”_

_She rolls her eyes, as if she is dealing with petulant child, “You haven’t been here, we have learned more and made more progress in the last three years without you mollycoddling her every step of the way.”_

_“You have effectively tortured the girl, you know that? You tortured her and then brought me in to try and clean up your mess.”_

_“Don’t be so melodramatic.”_

_“She hasn’t had human contact for three fucking years Martha.” The veins in his temples are protruding beneath his skin, his face growing redder as his anger pours out, “This violates the fucking Geneva convention!”_

_“As does every other prison in this country, it’s not new.” She says coldly. Nicolas hesitates for a moment, staring at her in disbelief._

_“This isn’t a prison. She is not a prisoner.”_

_“Then how would you describe her?” Professor Dayton raises her eyebrows, and Nicolas opens his mouth, trying to form an answer, “Exactly. We are not here to look after her.”_

_“Then why are we here?” Nicolas growls._

_“To figure out how to control her.” She states this as if it is obvious, and turns her attention back to her computer, her fingers tapping down on different keys. “Or more precisely, how to control her so we can put that virus to good use”_

_“She is more than just a virus.” Nicolas whispers, staring at Professor Dayton with a defeated expression on his face, his moral outrage giving way to helplessness._

_She doesn’t look up as she says this, “So, do you want a handover?” She asks, as if she hasn’t heard a single word Nick has said. He raises a hand and pinches the bridge of his nose, blinking rapidly, trying to process the situation._

_“I want an explanation, not a fucking handover.”_

_“You saw what she did Dr Jones, Christiane is dangerous. That is the only explanation you need.” Professor Dayton reaches out and turns the large computer monitor in the direction of Nicolas. He sighs and follows her lead, reaching out and pulling the spare chair closer to her desk. “I know you care about her, but you are also a scientist – we need you to be objective, we need you here as a scientist. Not as her keeper”_

_“I can’t condone what you did to her.” He states plainly. Professor Dayton shrugs, returning her attention to the screen._

_“That’s why you were transferred.” She leans forward and pulls up a video file on the computer, hitting the play button. Nick watches as an image appears on the screen, an angled birds-eye view of one of the many identical clinical rooms in the building. It is sparse, with a bed, a toilet, a small shower stuffed into the corner. On the bed is a familiar a figure with striking white hair, sitting with her knees pulled up to her chest._

_“What are you showing me?” He asks, as the gravity of Chris’ situation hits him again, seeing her isolated in a blank room, no stimulation, no communication, just vast shades of white and solitude._

_“I’m showing you what we’ve learned.” The video file is spliced together, a crude formulation of infrequent remarkable events across months and years, as if it provides some sort of coherent synthesis of her experience, “Christiane tried her best to adapt, and she is very adaptable –“ Professor Dayton raises a finger and points adamantly at the screen as clips appear of Chris laughing, speaking, singing, spinning across the empty room ,”We think she induced endogenous hallucinations to counteract the lack of stimulation, it’s hard to say conclusively -”_

_“You could have fucking asked her.” The rage is growing again in the pit of his stomach, watching Chris try desperately to overcome aching boredom and loneliness._

_“That would have defeated the purpose.” Professor Dayton says dismissively._

_“I don’t see the utility of this Martha.”_

_“Keep watching, it got more interesting once she found that psychosis wasn’t an adequate coping strategy.” He watches as Professor Dayton skips forward on the video, the dates in the corner of the recording jumping ahead by months and then years, “That’s when she started to present with suicidal behaviour.”_

_“Jesus fucking Christ.” Nick’s voice is strangled by anguish as she lets more clips play, and he sees Chris lost in the mist of her eyes, stopping her breathing, collapsing, losing co-ordination, vomiting, he can see multiple lesions erupt on her skin as the days and months pass, and he knows she is trying desperately to put herself out of her own misery._

_“It didn’t work, Nick.” Professor Dayton whispers this with an edge of excitement, “Every time she induced some sort of disease process or pathology, she stopped it. She had to, she had no choice. It is a reflexive response.” He can see the determination and desperation painted on Chris’ face on the grainy video, trying desperately to die._

_“But it did work.” Nick whispers, and there are tears brimming in the edges of his eyes, “She was dying, Martha, she was bleeding to death. She is still hypovolemic.”_

_“Yes! She was!” The enthusiasm in Professor Dayton’s voice is making Nick feel sick, and he averts his eyes from the screen to meet hers, as if to check and see whether it is sincere, “Nick, all those other times she induced disease and morbidity with the virus. But she wasn’t using the virus this time. She just used a piece of glass.”_

_“I don’t understand…” Nick starts to shake his head._

_“We hypothesised this during the early days when we did the preliminary neurological examinations but… essentially when she engages with the virus she enters into a different conscious state. You’ve always described it to her as a… feeling… but it’s a deliberate choice” Professor Dayton’s voice is bright and there is an urgency to it, “She has phenomenal conscious control over these abilities.She has to enter into an entirely different state of consciousness to get the effects of the virus, to engage in any biological manipulation. And that is why she didn’t reflexively stop bleeding. That is why she was dying."_

_“I mean… I don’t understand why any of this matters.” Nick clarifies. She hesitates, momentarily searching his face, trying to choose her next few words carefully._

_“It matters because she is dangerous, Nick.” Her words are now soft and slow, “It matters because if we want her out in the world, then this means we can develop a contingency plan.”_

_“Contingency plan?” Nick growls these words, understanding the implication immediately._

_“Only for a worst case scenario. If we can’t control her, who knows what sort of damage she can do. This gives us so much more flexibility.”_

_“A contingency plan.” Nicolas repeats, feeling panic bubbling in his gut, and he shakes his head, “You mean you can figure out how to fucking kill her.”_

_“That’s not what we want. Obviously that’s not what we want, that’s why we stopped her, that’s why we brought you in –“_

_“For what? Why the hell did you invite me back if this is your plan?”_

_“This isn’t our plan Nicholas, this just means we might have a safety net. That’s all. We brought you back in so we would never have to use it.”_

_“You have put her through hell. You have put her through hell for nothing.” He spits this out and pushes himself up out of the chair._

_“It wasn’t for nothing.” She corrects him._

_“What was it for then? Sheer sadistic pleasure?”_

_“If you have a wild horse that you can’t ride, how do you get control over it?” She looks expectantly at Nick who glares down at her, “You break it. We broke her, it’s now your job to put her back together the way we want.”_

_Nick shakes his head, “She’s not an animal, Martha. She’s a fucking human being.”_

* * *

The door is a pale green colour with the number ‘23’ laid out in copper at eye level. The keys jangle in Billy’s hand as he reaches out and slides them into the lock, the door swinging open inwards. He steps inside and hesitates momentarily at the threshold, his eyes darting around the dark room, the two twin beds, the sickly orange walls, the maroon carpet.

“Perfect.” He grumbles, and steps confidently into the room, tossing the travel bag onto one of the beds. Crisp lingers behind in the open walk way of the motel, glancing up and down to see similar doorways stretching out to either side of her. The drive here from the diner had been in silence, the weight of their secrets hanging heavy in the air between him, forcing her not to ask questions for fear of the answers.

She wonders for a moment if she should run. If she should listen to the alarm bells ringing in her head, set off by the familiarity of half-truths that spilled from Billy’s mouth. She knows that she is not equipped to navigate the world, that even finding shelter away from this man would be too complicated to figure out alone. She knows that Vought would find her before she could even find her feet.

She steps into the room and watches Billy rummaging in a small refrigerator next to a table, pulling out small bottles of golden-brown liquid. “Jackpot!” He announces as Crisp closes the door gently behind her. She turns to see him pick up one of the bottles and throw it in her direction. She darts forward to catch it, her fingers closing around the cool glass. She glances down and sees the black ' _Jack Daniel’s_ ' label wrapped smoothly around the surface. “Don’t worry, government’s paying for it.” Billy reassures her with a wink.

“Thanks.” She says quietly.

“Why so glum Crispy?” Billy asks, unscrewing the top from one of the small bottles and raising it to his lips, the entire contents disappearing down his throat, “Whiskey not your drink?”

She shakes her head and opens her mouth, hesitating momentarily. She has spent her life shrouded in secrecy, not knowing the intentions of the people who pulled her strings, not knowing why she was doing half the things she was asked to do. She doesn’t want to be ignorant anymore. “Why did you lie to her?” She asks.

“Lie to who?” Billy is disinterested as he strides over to the bed where he had discarded the bag, unzipping it to rifle through its contents, “Susan?”

“Yes, Susan. Why did you lie to Susan?”

“Wasn’t just me, love. You lied too.” He doesn’t look up as he pulls out different items of clothing.

“I was following your lead -” Crisp watches him, her eyebrows knitted together, “I’m not… accusing you I’m just… not sure why you were lying.”

“She’s a Spook.” Billy murmurs, finally looking up, “She’d have you shipped off to some secret facility in the ass end of nowhere, getting fucking probed and shit – was just lookin’ out for you.”

Crisp narrows her eyes, her brows still pulled down into a frown, and she starts chewing on her lower lip. She shakes her head, “No. No you weren’t.”

“Well that’s not the fucking thank you I was expecting.” Billy leans back, watching Crisp ball her hands into small fists, fingers tightening around the smooth glass surface of the bottle. She seems more uncomfortable than angry.

“You gave her Nick’s laptop. She’ll know everything.” Crisp points out. Billy pauses, his eyes travelling the length of the woman who stands in front of him in the bizarre childish outfit that they had fished out of the bag at the last safe house. He shrugs, pulling his blood-stained trench coat off his shoulders and throwing it on the bed next to the open bag, shirt hanging open and loose off his torso.

“I mean you got a point…” He sighs.

“So why.” Crisp hisses, and there is fear to her voice. Billy runs a hand through his hair and sighs, stepping towards her. He smirks as he closes the distance between them, coming to a halt in front of her. She tilts her head to look up at him.

“Well, darlin’” His voice is low, “Ain’t a chance in hell Susan would leave me alone with you if she knew what you were capable of, and I wanted a chat before they called in the cavalry.”

“You wanted a chat.” She repeats these words back to him in disbelief as she tries to process the situation. She feels her stomach tie itself into a tight, nauseated ball of anxiety. There is a smirk on his lips, and she can smell the faint scent of whiskey on his breath. “About what?”

“About your very specific talents.” He can see her squirm beneath his gaze, “About how they can be put to noble use.”

Billy watches as Crisp’s face changes in front of him, her eyebrows rising, the tension in her expression giving way to something he is not expecting. She looks hurt. She looks more wounded now than she did when he had stuck a knife in her belly, “You want to put me to use.” She whispers this quietly, and he can hear the words breaking with emotion.

“Got to earn your keep love.” He tells her as the smirk on his face spreads. “I don’t see why we can’t come to a… mutually beneficial arrangement.”

She takes in a shaky breath. A rush of memories speed up to meet her, and once again she is standing in the testing rooms of the lab, being told that she can have her freedom as long as she earns it, as long as she lets herself be used. The feeling that settles over her is acutely painful and familiar, it is the sunken realisation that she is not in control, that she will always be viewed as a means to an end.

“What arrangement?” Her voice is still muted, and Billy watches as she averts her gaze, hanging her head and looking down at the small whiskey bottle cradled in her hands.

“One where we make Vought answer for all the shit they’ve done.” Billy spits out. Crisp shakes her head, slowly at first, before becoming deliberate and adamant. She looks back up at Billy, her eyes gleaming with a thin sheen of tears.

“I can’t.” She states, “I just want to get away, I’m out.” Her voice cracks again as a sense of panic takes over. “I’m out.”

Hey-“ Billy interrupts her, hearing the terror swell in her voice. “It ain’t that simple sweetheart. Those bastards ain’t going to just let you fuck off and disappear into the sunset.”

“So what do you want me to do?” Crisp hisses.

Billy studies her face, the mixture of hurt and fear is strange considering what he has watched her do, what he knows she is capable of. He knows that she never has to answer to anyone if she doesn’t want to, that with a simple touch she could cause unimaginable devastation. He assumes that her isolation has fed into this, that it has left her feeling trapped and disempowered. That she doesn’t even understand who she is, what she is, what she can do. That she has spent so long just wanting a way out that she has never considered what she could do with her freedom.

Billy smiles at her, another tight-lipped knowing smirk. Her seclusion has taught her that she is helpless, that she has no direction. He can dig his hooks into her and make sure she sees the world the way he does, the way he needs her to, he can give her all the focus that she needs. She is ripe for manipulation. He reaches up and pushes a strand of hair behind her ear, allowing his fingers to graze against the skin of her jaw, settling the rough palm of his hand against the curve of her cheek.

“What _you_ want to do.” He says. Crisp feels her breath catch in her throat as she freezes in place. She can barely stand the sensation of his skin against hers, the sensation of his thumb running across the rise of her cheek bone. It is deliberate and intimate, a combination she can barely recognise. For years people have only reached out to touch her with gloves, latex and plastic separating her from the feeling of warmth. He has chosen to touch her, skin against skin, knowing what she could do. Billy lowers his head, as if he wants to confess a closely held secret, “What you _really_ want to do.”

She is holding her breath, and she can hear her heart pounding in her ears. She tries to string a coherent thought together, “I-I’m scared.” She confesses. She cannot look away from his eyes, dark and determined. He grits his teeth, and places his other hand gently against the other side of her face, as if holding her in place, grounding her, making her feel present and wanted.

“Scared of what?” He whispers, “You ain’t some supe that they have on a leash, they are the ones who should be scared. You’re the fucking destroyer of worlds.”


	12. Acetaldehyde

_Can we pick up all the debris of our bitter past_   
_Nothing's worse than realizing who you've hurt_   
_I didn't bend and now we eat the consequence_

* * *

It tastes disgusting. The amber liquid races over her tongue and scorches her throat as it goes down. She winces and drops the bottle in the gap between her crossed legs. She grits her teeth and looks across the room at Billy, who reclines back on his bed with a much larger bottle in his hand.

“That stuff is nasty.” Crisp gasps. Billy lets out a laugh, cocking an eyebrow and examining the pained expression on her face.

“Never have I ever got shit-faced.” He grumbles as he lazily raises the bottle to his mouth, taking a gulp while keeping his eyes trained on Crisp, sitting still on her own twin bed, “Figured.”

“They weren’t exactly taking me out for beers every Friday night.” She murmurs, fishing out another small bottle from the pile that sits next to her. They have emptied the fridge, and at the threat of exhausting their supplies Billy had managed to retrieve a much larger bottle of Jack, from the liquor store on the corner, to get him through the night. 

“Fucking tragedy that.” Billy purses his lips together, his eyes travelling to the pocked ceiling of the motel, “And you’re going to be sober by the end of the night at this rate.”

The sun has gone down and the two of them are illuminated by the buzzing lamp that sits in the gap between the beds. “I’ve been locked up for two decades, give me a break.” She sighs, her fingers running over the smooth glass, finding another bottle filled with clear liquid.

“Here’s one -” Billy clears his throat, “Never have I ever killed a guy.”

Crisp narrows her eyes and pinches the neck of the bottle, unscrewing the small red cap and raises it to her lips. She takes in a mouthful and winces, feeling a shiver crawl down her spine as she forces the liquid down her throat. She watches as Billy mimics the action, raising the bottle of whiskey to his own mouth.

“What’s the story there?” She asks, and Billy shoots her a glare and shakes his head.

“Stor _ies_.” He growls. Crisp feels a small smile rise to her lips.

“Figured.” She whispers, and the smile splits into a grin. Billy catches her eye and smirks.

“Never have I ever…” Billy starts and he shifts his weight, his eyes returning to the bottle in his hands, “Never have I ever met a fucking supe called Homelander.”

Crisp furrows her brow, watching as Billy hastily takes a gulp from the bottle, his eyes darting to Crisp to gauge her reaction. “That guy with the cape who is always on TV?”, she asks with a sincere ignorance that makes Billy’s heart sink.

“Yeah, that cunt.”

“Can’t say I’ve had the pleasure…” She murmurs, she can see the tension across Billy’s shoulders, the whiteness of his knuckles, “Why do you ask?”

“Never have I ever given a fucker cancer.” The words are lined with unexpected vitriol as he spits them out of his mouth, and it is so sudden that Crisp almost flinches. The alcohol has started to chip away the small amount of self-control that reigns in Billy’s bubbling resentment. She has touched a nerve, and she is not sure why or how, so she raises the small bottle to her lips and drains the last of it.

“I’m out.” She coughs as the liquor cuts into her throat, and she discards the bottle in the small pile that has accumulated over the evening.

“Fucking tragic, love.” Billy murmurs, and Crisp rolls her eyes. She pushes herself up from the surface of the bed, the bottles rolling onto the floor and clattering against each other as they hit the garish carpet. The change in elevation suddenly makes her head spin, and she realises this is what alcohol feels like, the heaviness of her head, the warmness of her cheeks. It is making everything around her feel softer.

“You can share.” She says quietly as she takes a step towards Billy’s bed and bounces down onto the mattress to face him, pulling her knees up beneath her. She reaches out, pulling the large glass bottle from his loose grasp.

“I fucking bought that myself.” Billy growls as he pushes himself upright so he is eye level with her.

“Never have I ever saved your life.” Crisp says with a smirk, raising the rim of the bottle to her lips, taking a small swig.

“Don’t think you did us any favours there.” His head is getting foggy enough from the booze that his plan to charm this woman is slowly slipping away, being replaced by the ambient anger that 

“Time will tell.” She says with a sigh, inspecting his face, the overgrown beard, the dark eyes, the way that his skin crinkles around the edges. Billy’s gaze shifts to meet hers, noticing the intensity with which she is scrutinising him, feeling his skin crawl beneath it.

“What?” He spits out.

“Why do you hate them so much?” Her voice is far away, but the question cuts Billy to the core. He winces and attempts a shrug. She scrapes her teeth along her lower lip, reaching out and offering him the bottle again. She recognises the pain behind his eyes, it is the same pain that she has seen painted on Nick’s face on countless occasions when he had to watch her get hurt, when she was doused in gasoline and set alight. She clears her throat, “Never have I ever been in love.”

He glares at her with an intensity that makes her feel as if he can see inside her skull, and again she can hear her heart begin to pound in her ears. He reaches out and swipes the bottle from her hand, and she watches him as he takes another large mouthful of the whiskey, inhaling sharply as it travels down to his stomach. He looks down at the bottle, holding it between his two hands, and it feels as if an eternity of silence has passed. Crisp doesn’t dare speak, she doesn’t even dare breathe, instead she grits her teeth and waits.

“Becca,”, Billy exhales and splits the silence open with a name on his breath. “My wife Becca used to work for them,” Crisp can see his eyes shine in the dim light of the motel room, his gaze still fixed on the whiskey bottle, “Homelander…” The name catches in his throat, “Homelander raped her.” She watches as he hastily raises the whiskey bottle to his mouth to take another gulp, as if to rinse out the taste of the words he had just said, “Nobodies seen her since, she’s been missing for eight years. Either Homelander killed or she killed herself.”

Crisp feels her head spinning, and she’s not sure if it is from the alcohol or the sudden clarity with which she is seeing Billy. She looks down at her lap, finding herself toying with the edge of her t-shirt, “I’m sorry.” She whispers softly. She can remember the visceral reaction Billy when they met only a handful of days earlier, his insistence that he kill her, the vitriol in every word that he spoke to her, the knife he plunged into her gut. It makes sense to her now, that he would extend all of his suffering to every branch of Vought’s insidious network, herself included. “It’s… horrifying… having someone you care for taken from you.” She murmurs.

He glances up from the bottle, examining the softness of her expression, the detachment to her voice, “They take someone from you?” He asks cautiously. She smiles to herself, and lets out a laugh that is laced with a hint of tears.

“Just my pet cat.” She says in disbelief, understanding the absurdity of the statement in the wake of his confession. Billy frowns, and for a moment the knowledge of her suffering manages to unearth a small pang of compassion. They never took anything else from her because there was nothing to take. He raises the bottle, offering it to her.

“Never have I ever had to watch my folks die after they infected me with a deadly fucking virus.” The bottle hangs heavily between Billy’s fingers, and Crisp slowly reaches out and takes it from him, hesitantly raising the bottle to her lips, taking a deep gulp. She winces, and finally meets Billy’s eyes.

“Nick told you.”

“The whole fucking Greek tragedy.” He says with a nod.

Crisp shrugs, “I don’t really remember them.” She admits, “I can barely remember the whole… thing.” She frowns, as if trying to retrace the vague recollections she has stored away in the back of her mind, “I can just about remember the smell… and the colours.”

“The colours?”

“They… bled. So much. I mean, it was like…” She can just about picture it behind her eyes, the thick coating over her parents skin and clothes, sticking to them, “It was like tar.” Billy watches her as her eyes drift back down to the bottle in her hand, losing herself in her thoughts, “At least… I think I remember it. It’s hard to tell what is a memory and what is just an image you’ve built up in your head to fill in the gaps.”

“Listen kid, you didn’t deserve that.” He says decisively and Crisp shrugs. It had never been a thought that crossed her mind, that she had any of this coming to her. It all happened long before she had enough moral agency to understand. Billy averts his gaze, “And you didn’t deserve what I done to you.”

Crisp’s head snaps around as she hears an uncomfortable note of guilt to his words, “What?” She whispers softly, sure she had misheard him.

“I didn’t think.” Billy grunts, still avoiding her eyes. It feels unnatural, even in the short period of time that Crisp has known this man she has realised guilt isn’t his default, that apologies are not in his vocabulary.

“Obviously,” Crisp says with an oddly playful tone to her voice. Billy reluctantly raises his gaze to meet her eyes, his brow furrowed in confusion, “I mean if you’d actually taken the time to think about it… you’d have realised it wasn’t going to work.” 

Billy narrows his eyes, not understanding her casual approach to his attempted murder. He is expecting resentment, hurt, he is expecting some sort of resistance to his company. He is expecting to pick her apart and find a seed of anger, something he can nurture and foster a sense of injustice, something he can use. “You’re fucked in the head, love.” He murmurs, and she nods.

“We all are, Billy.” She sighs, “If you don’t laugh, you’d cry.”

“I stabbed you in the fucking gut,” Billy growls, “You’ve got a stellar fucking excuse to cry.”

“There are far more important things to cry over.” She says plainly. Billy shakes his head.

“What’s worse than being fucking killed?”

Crisp shakes her head, raising the bottle in front of her as if it is some sort of ceremonious object. She hesitates for a moment, trying to gauge through her drunken haze how much she is willing to confide, “Never have I ever…” She starts, trying to sift through painful memories. “Never have I ever been held down by people I trusted while they harvested my bone marrow.” She takes a drink.

“Never have I ever had my bones broken repeatedly just to see how quickly I could repair them.”

She takes a drink.

“Never have I ever lost count of the test subjects that I had to watch bleed to death from the same fucking virus they harvested from my marrow.”

She takes a drink.

“Never have I ever been burned alive.”

She takes a drink.

“Crisp, stop -” Billy interjects, but he has tapped into a vein of resentment that she does not want to stem.

“Never have I ever spent three years alone in a locked room, with no human contact.”

She takes a drink.

“Stop.” Billy hisses, he leans forward, reaching to take the bottle from her hand, she leans back so it is out of his reach.

“Never have I ever stopped my own heart in an attempt to just fucking get out.”

Drink.

“Never have I ever had to watch a man beg me to save him-” She is cut off as Billy lurches forward and grips the bottle with both hands, tearing it from her grasp.

“I get it,” Billy snaps, staring at her wide eyed. Crisp’s face is flushed, her eyes lined with tears and she feels nauseated from the pool of whiskey sitting in the pit of her stomach. She takes a deep breath.

“You thought you were doing the right thing.” Her voice is still shaking slightly from the emotion of her outburst, “They knew that they weren’t.”

Billy leans over and places the bottle on the floor, out of their reach, “They’re cunts.” A smile splits across Crisp’s face as tears well up in her eyes, and she lets out a choked laugh at Billy’s blunt attempt at reassurance. He glances up at her, seeing a droplet escape and track down her cheek, and his hand travels up to smudge it across her skin, “They ain’t going to get away with any of this shit.” He says decisively, “We ain’t gonna let them.”

* * *

_Nick stands behind the glass with his arms folded across his chest, his eyebrows pulled down into an uncomfortable frown. On the other side of the glass, on a reclining hospital bed, sits Chris, her arm held close to her chest in a sling. Her eyes are directed towards the small television screen that hangs in the corner of the room, but the soft focus on her features betrays the fact that she is not paying attention. She has checked out._

_“Moment of truth.” He hears a voice beside him and he turns his head to see Professor Dayton standing in the doorway of the dark observation room._

_“She will never agree to this.” Nick growls._

_“She doesn’t need to know.” Professor Dayton says with a shrug, leaning against the door frame, “You can always lie, just appeal to that bleeding-heart idealist that you’ve turned her into.”_

_“You can’t be okay with this.” Nick counters. She purses her lips together, and Nick knows he is right. He has worked with this woman long enough to know that there is some remnant of morality within her._

_“I’m not, but it’s the price we have to pay.” She sighs, “And I think it’s about time she got out of here. You’ve seen what she can do, she was always meant for the Seven. She’s wasted here.”_

_Nick unfolds his arm and reaches out, plucking the large hazmat suit from the wall. He steps into it, pulling it up around him, his arms disappearing into the sleeves. He pulls the tight yellow hood up over his head, sealing it all off with a respirator strapped tightly over his face, “This is over kill.” He murmurs._

_“You don’t want to end up like Dr Jones.” Professor Dayton counters._

_“That was an accident.”_

_“Doesn’t reduce the risk.”_

_Nick strides out of the room, stepping around Professor Dayton, walking towards the door to the clinical room. He takes a moment, his latex clad hand hesitating on the handle, and tries to dampen down the fear that is eating its way through his stomach._

_He joined Vought with a naïve belief that he would be making a difference, that their ability to manufacture superheroes would be a net positive. Even as he tortured Chris he could still kid himself into believing that it was worth it, that one day she would come out of this as a benevolent saviour ready to heal the world. And now even that is being tainted by the greed that has always underpinned this conglomerate._

_He opens the door and tries to force a reassuring smile onto his face as he steps into the room, hoping she can see it in his eyes. Chris’ gaze slowly pans to look at him, a small flash of recognition. She doesn’t smile. “How are you feeling today?” Nick asks, closing the door quietly behind him._

_“Okay.” She says simply, her voice flat. Her pale skin is smooth across her face, no crinkle of a frown or hint of smile._

_“Your arm -” Nick starts, reaching out and pulling over a plastic chair that sits near the end of her bed. “Is it not bothering you?”_

_Chris glances down at her left arm, held tightly against her chest in a sling. It hurts, and it is useless with the severed nerves and tendons, but she sees no point in fixing it. “No.” she sighs, her eyes flitting back up to meet Nick’s as he perches himself next to her bed, “It’s fine.”_

_“It must be painful.” He murmurs. She shrugs, her apathy palpable. He watches her for a moment, her absent gaze, her immovable expression, and he hates that this is what they have turned her into._

_“Not really.” She tells him. He searches her face for some sort of emotion, a twinge of pain, her usual look of defiance, even the grief that he had seen pour out of her in the wake of her suicide attempt. Instead he is greeted with nothing but absent passivity._

_“I have good news.” He says cautiously, watching for a reaction. Nothing, she stares at him blankly, “They’re giving you a chance to get out of here.”_

_He expects some reaction, he expects suspicion, derision, even maybe a touch of optimism or joy. She doesn’t flinch, “Okay.” She says._

_“Is that not what you want?” Nick asks cautiously, “Do you not want out of here?”_

_Chris shrugs again, looking down at her wounded arm, “I don’t care.”_

_“Of course, you do.” Nick leans forward in his chair, his suit crinkling as his weight shifts, “This is what we’ve been working towards.”_

_She doesn’t look up, “What do they want?”_

_“They want you to join the Seven. They want you to save lives, just like you’ve always wanted to do.” Nick tries to fill the words with excitement, but as he watches he knows that it doesn’t matter, she is no longer here. She has learned that there is no point in hoping, no point in trying, no point in listening to repetitive empty promises that never come to fruition._

_“What do they want?” She repeats, “They're not planning on letting me walk out of here. You know that.”_

_Nick clears his throat, his glasses fogging up in the recirculated air beneath his visor. “They want your help with one project, that’s it.” He studies her face, and he remembers the small girl whose hand he held tightly through the countless painful procedures. Who was so excited to learn about all of the ways she could help people, who would hang on his every word as he told her how special she was, how all the awful things she was going through was going to mean thousands of lives could be saved. He knows she is still in there. “It’s a biomedical project they’re trying to get off the ground.”_

_“Manufacturing more superheroes?” She asks dismissively. Nick looks down at his lap, guilt already constricting his throat before the lie even leaves his mouth._

_“A vaccination programme.”_

_Chris eyes dart up to look at Nick, whose crouched over his plastic seat. “Vaccines?” She asks, and there’s a hint of hope in her voice, coupled with understandable disbelief, “Vought is manufacturing vaccines?”_

_Nick nods, but doesn’t look up. He hears the tone to her voice, the same idealism that got her through countless painful procedures and cruel experiments, “Vought are looking at emerging infectious diseases in the developing world. There’s less money in it than superheroes but it will do wonders for their public image. “_

_“Are you serious?” Chris narrows her eyes, her scepticism well founded. Nick nods, and finally raises his head so he can meet her eyes,_

_“Yes, I am.” He sighs, “And they think you can help.”_

_Chris examines his face, there is a tightness around his eyes that betrays something is not quite right, a discomfort with what he is saying. “And if I do this…”_

_“If you do this they’ll… trust you. They’ll trust you enough to transfer you out of here and put you on the payroll.” Nick states reluctantly, “Think of it as a show of good faith.”_

_Chris shakes her head, “A vaccine development programme is a show of good faith? I’d never have said no, you know that.”_

_Nick grits his teeth, “So you’re happy to do this then?”_

_“Of course.” Chris says, “I’ll do anything I can to help.”_

* * *

Crisp wakes up to light spilling in from beneath drawn curtains, cascading across the maroon carpet. She squints her eyes, her face pressed hard against the rough sheets that line the mattress beneath her. She is almost over the edge, her body balancing above the precipice of the bed. The headache hits her first, swelling up from behind her eyeballs and blossoming under the morning light. She lets out a groan, clamping her eyes shut in an attempt to stifle it.

That’s when she feels the warmth and movement behind her, the sensation of breath on the back of her neck and the shifting of the mattress beneath someone else’s body weight. She pushes down and rolls herself over, being hit by the overwhelming smell of stale, distilled liquor. She opens her eyes and finds herself staring at Billy’s face, eyes closed and lips parted in deep sleep.

She almost immediately regrets opening her eyes and clamps them shut again. This feeling is new to her, the nausea is gradually building, and every time she moves her head it feels as if it takes a few seconds for her mind to catch up. The previous night is foggy, and the lack of clarity is clawing at her. She remembers emptying the mini-bar, she remembers the drinking games, she remembers Billy’s wife, and she remembers that she drained the bottle of whiskey in an emotional outburst.

She tries to push herself upright, but the tension in her muscle makes her stomach lurch and she stops herself before gravity can add to the mess. She glances back to Billy and sees that he is lying on his stomach, his face turned towards her on the pillow, his arm draped lazily across her torso. They slept in their clothes, and Crisp doesn’t doubt the material is now saturated with the sickly-sweet scent of whiskey that escaped through their sweat. She needs a shower.

She slips out from beneath the weight of Billy’s arm, and as she stands upright she feels her head spin and her stomach lurch. She pauses, before stumbling forward towards the bathroom. She finds the sink, turns the taps, and leans over to place her mouth beneath the stream of water, gulping it down.

She groans as she comes up for air, and catches a glimpse of herself in the mirror above the sink. Her face is flushed, her eyes are red, and she looks exhausted. She takes in another deep breath, attempting to ignore the sensation of her stomach rolling over in her abdomen, and slowly a milky haze glazes over her eyes.

It’s poison. She understands that when she feels her cells crying out for hydration and glucose, the inflammation in her stomach, the acids swimming her blood stream. She grips the side of the sink as she forces her body back into homeostasis, constricting her blood vessels, breaking down toxic metabolites, forcing her liver to spit out glucose. She smiles in relief as her stomach settles and her headache subsides, and she blinks, returning her focus to the small, dimly lit bathroom.

She glances briefly into the room to see Billy is still fast asleep, and closes the door quietly in an attempt not to disturb him. She hastily pulls off her clothes, desperate to get herself under running water. She reaches out and twists the faucet, feeling cold water come down from the shower head above her. She doesn’t wait for it to heat up, instead she climbs into the shower and soaks herself in the steady stream of icy water, gasping as it hits her skin and wakes her up.

She hastily washes, scrubbing down stretches of pale skin in an attempt to rid herself of the stink of alcohol that has seeped through her pores. As she finishes she turns off the water and steps out of the shower, glancing around to only find a hand towel draped through a circular metal ring attached to the wall. She sighs and reaches out, doing her best to pat herself dry, to soak up the water from her hair, with a single towel. She pulls on her clothes, stained from the whiskey and vodka that she drank last night, and they stick to the moisture that still clings to her skin.

“Fuckin’ hell.” She hears Billy’s voice travel through the door. She smirks, discarding the towel on the rim of the sink, and opens the door to find Billy hunched over on his bed, his two hands pressing into his forehead, his eyes clamped shut.

“Morning.” Crisp sighs. Billy slowly turns his head, reluctantly cracking his eyes open to see Crisp standing in the doorway, her white hair dripping wet, clothes sticking to her. Her expression is bright and earnest.

“Why the fuck are you so cheerful?” Billy growls, “I feel like my brain is trying to escape through my fucking eyeballs.” Crisp strides forward, her bare feet padding across the thick carpet, and she jumps down on the mattress next to him. He glares at her, as if her obvious absence of pain is making his own worse. He hasn’t been this hungover in years.

“Give me your hand.” Crisp says simply, holding her own out flat. Billy grits his teeth, his eyes narrowed and bloodshot as he tries to avoid the morning light. He considers her for a second, her eyes are wide and sincere, a few droplets of water still clinging to her eyelashes from the shower.

“You a fucking palm reader now?” He murmurs, but he slowly raises his hand and places it in hers. She says nothing, instead her fingers wrap tightly around his. He squints at her and can see the iciness of her eyes disappearing, a creamy white film covering her iris and pupil. He inhales sharply, and a part of him wants to pull his hand away, snap it back as if he has been burned. He fights through the reflex, gritting his teeth and tightening his own grip around her hand, trying to convince himself that she is not going to take the opportunity to give him a stroke, or cancer, or some other tropical disease with no cure.

Within a few seconds he feels it, he feels the headache rolling back, his stomach stops churning and the desire to vomit subsides, he opens his eyes fully and the light doesn’t hurt, Even the creeping anxiety of the morning after ebbs away, and his heart slows in his chest. When she slides her hand out of his, a small smile spreading to her blue eyes, he feels as if he has just woken from a restful sleep.

“What the fuck.” He murmurs. He doesn’t really know why he is surprised, he knows what she can do, she has pulled him back from the brink of death before, but this small reminder still takes his breath away.

“Your brain should stay put for the meantime.” She tells him, before glancing over at the open travel bag that he had discarded on the twin bed the previous night, “You got a spare shirt? This one stinks.”

“Yeah, uh…” He murmurs, still reeling from the sudden disappearance of his hangover, “There’s a few in there.”

He watches her rise from the bed and stride purposefully over to the bag, reaching in and sifting through the assortment of clothes that Susan had stuffed in there for him. She pulls out a dark shirt, spreading the material in front of her, large palm leaves dotting the fabric. Without skipping a beat, she tosses it down on the bed in front of her and reaches down, pulling her shirt over her head in one swift movement.

Immediately Billy looks away, feeling heat rise beneath his collar. Crisp doesn’t notice, it doesn’t even occur to her to hide herself as she reaches out and picks up the shirt, pulling it over her bare skin. “I need a fucking shower.” She hears Billy growl as he rises from the bed. He marches towards her, picking up the bag from the bed as she buttons up the front of the shirt, and then disappears behind her into the bathroom.

When the knock rings out from the door to their motel room Billy is still in the bathroom, the sound of the shower faint behind the motel room wall. Crisp sits cross legged on one of the beds, glancing towards the door with her eyes wide. She hears the creak of the faucet, slowly followed by silence as the water stops running. “Don’t fucking answer that!” She hears Billy shout, just as another sharp rap echoes across through the room.

“Butcher I know you’re in there.” Comes a familiar voice. Crisp shifts her weight on the bed but doesn’t dare move. She can hear Billy from through the wall, the sound of clattering, frantic movements. Another thud against the door.

“Open up!”

“Billy?” Crisp says his name as a question.

“Let me put my fucking pants on!” She hears him roar from the behind the bathroom door. Crisp straightens up, her eyebrows pulling down into a frown and she hears another thud. She pushes herself to the edge of the bed, just as the bathroom door throws itself open. Billy emerges from a cloud of steam, hastily pulling a dark shirt on around his bare torso.

He marches over to Crisp, his fingers twisting the buttons of his shirt together to close the fabric, “Whatever happens, kid,” Billy’s voice is low and urgent, “You’re with me.”

“What?” Crisp whispers, her eyes narrowing, unsure of what is unfolding. Another series of sharp raps echo throughout the room.

“I’ll fucking break down this door, Butcher!” The voice is muffled by the wood, but the anger is crystal clear. Billy rolls his eyes, marching over to the motel room door, his bare feet leaving small damp marks on the carpet in his wake. He reaches out and turns the small lock, pulling the door open with a tight, sarcastic smile twisted on his features.

“Good mornin’ to you too.” Billy purrs at the infuriated Susan who storms over the threshold the moment the door swings open.

“It’s two in the afternoon, why didn’t you answer your fucking phone?” Susan hisses. Billy raises his eyebrows, shrugging. He hadn’t heard it ring.

“Was busy getting my beauty sleep, love.” He purrs, and Susan’s eyes survey the room, seeing the mess of empty glass bottles discarded by the bottom of one the twin beds. She purses her lips together, her eyes darting to Crisp who sits apprehensively on the edge of the other bed, the frown still painted on her face.

“She needs to come with me.” Susan states, no hint of a question to her voice, no suggestion that it is a voluntary invitation.

“Is that right?” Billy asks, he glances at Crisp.

“I’m not going anywhere.”

“It wasn’t a question.” Susan says sharply, and she raises a hand, waving into the open doorway. The frown vanishes off Crisp’s face, replaced with frightened shock, as two strangers in stark white hazmat suits appear in the door frame. She feels a wave of nausea wash over her as she sees the Perspex visors, the thick latex gloves, the same faceless uniform she looked at every day for years

“What the fucks’ this?” There is an edge to Billy’s voice, and he instinctively moves between Susan and Crisp.

“Firstly, you lied.” Susan says curtly, “She is dangerous. The shit I saw on that laptop - ” Her voice cuts off and her eyes dart back to Crisp. The fear on her face is stark, reminding Susan of the teenage girl she saw on those grainy videos.

“She ain’t fucking dangerous,” Billy growls, squaring his shoulders, and for a second Crisp thinks he is doubling down on a stupid lie, denying the evidence that Susan has already witnessed, “She was tortured on a daily fuckin’ basis by those cunts.”

“And I’m sorry that happened to her -” Susan hisses through gritted teeth, her eyes moving back to glare at Billy.

“You know what she could do if she fucking wanted to,” Billy’s jaw clenches, “You've seen the shit she can do. But she ain’t done none of that. Because she doesn’t _ **want**_ to. She ain’t dangerous.”

Susan examines the rage shining in Billy’s eyes, and her face twists into a look of disbelief. She takes a step towards him, the two anonymous figures in hazmat suits still lingering in the doorway, awaiting direction. “Are you being serious?” She whispers this, the words dripping with suspicion, “You are standing here telling me that she’s not dangerous because we can _trust_ her? Because she’s spared us out of the goodness of her heart? You, Billy motherfucking Butcher, are telling me to trust a _supe_?”

“Technically she ain’t a supe.” Billy counters, “She wouldn’t play fucking ball, never made the cut.” Susan laughs, shaking her head.

“Yeah, well…” Susan clears her throat, taking a step back, “None of that matters, that barely scratches the surface of what’s going on here. She’s coming with us regardless.”

Crisp rises to her feet, straightening up, “I’m here.” She says quietly, and clears her throat, “You can speak to me. I am in the room.”

Susan lets out a sigh, trying to gather her patience and ignore the defiant look plastered on Billy’s face. She knows that look, she knows that there is no convincing him, she knows that he is not listening. She glances past him at Crisp, who looks bizarrely out of place standing in Billy’s over-sized dark shirt, and the expression on her face is a mix of fear and discomfort. Susan takes a step forward, moving around Billy, and walks slowly over to Crisp.

“I am sorry.” She says deliberately, “I am sorry for what Vought did to you, I am sorry for how you have been treated over the past few days, and I am sorry that I’m not able to give you the benefit of the doubt right now.”

“That’s a shit apology.” She hears Billy grunt behind her, and Crisp watches as Susan’s nostrils flare with frustration.

“And I’m sorry that you’ve been stuck with this idiot this entire time.” She hisses. She then purses her lips and examines Crisp’s face, trying to make a judgement call, trying to determine just how much she can trust her. Her blue eyes are wide, and keep darting to the two agents in full protective gear. Susan knows trauma when she sees it.

“That laptop had all Vought’s records of the CRISPR programme. Not just raw data, but analysis and protocols.” Susan explains, and she watches as Crisp grasps watch she’s telling her, a look of understanding replacing her wide-eyed, terrified stare, "We saw what they did to you, and I'm sorry. But now we also know why they were doing it."

“You know what they were planning.” She says quietly. Susan nods.

“We need you to come with us.” Susan repeats, “We need your help.”

“And what exactly was Vought plannin’, huh?” Billy’s voice cuts through the tension as he turns on his heel to face the two women, his head cocked to one side, “What’s got your panties in a bunch all of a sudden?”

Crisp can see the frustration on Susan’s face, and she understands enough of Vought and their experiments to understand the gravity of the situation. “Did you see _any_ of the files on that computer?” Susan asks, glancing over her shoulder, “Did that doctor tell you _anything_? Do you understand what Vought was trying to achieve with that programme of research?” Billy shrugs, he had been a bit distracted by the vision of the necrotic wounds and bubbling tumours to focus on anything else at the time. His focus had been on removing the immediate threat, not digging into long-term plans, “Our whistle-blower wasn’t lying, they’ve been trying to develop biological fucking warfare.”

“Don’t see how that’s our problem.” Billy folds his arms over his chest. Susan shakes her head.

“Yeah, you wouldn’t.” She turns back to Crisp. Susan knows from the panicked expression on her face that she has just confirmed Crisp’s worst fears. “I don’t want to ask these men to restrain you. From what I have seen from Vought's files you wanted to help people, you wanted to make a difference. And if that's still true then this is your chance. I need you to come with us now.”

Crisp glances at Billy, seeing him clench his jaw, every muscle in his body tense. She feels as if her entire existence is starting to come into focus, as if the past couple of days have given her enough to context to see her life for what it really is. She does not want to return to locked doors and latex gloves, but the words Billy said to her the previous day still ring in her head, framing every experiment she went through with a sinister hue. She returns her gaze to Susan and slowly nods, “Of course.” She says quietly, and out of the corner of her eye she can see Billy roll his eyes in frustration, “I’ll do anything I can to help.”


	13. Crushed

_We were reaching in the dark_   
_That summer in New York_   
_And it was so far to fall_   
_But it didn't hurt at all_

* * *

There is panic coursing through Billy’s veins as he rushes out the door of the motel room, his eyes trained on the two walking hazmat suits in front of him that stride beside Crisp, her small frame engulfed by his shirt. “Crisp, you ain't got to go with them!” He shouts after her. He hasn’t even put his shoes on, instead he pads barefoot over the concrete of the motel parking lot.

“I know,” Crisp calls out, turning her head to look back at him over her shoulder, “It's my choice.”

He balls his hands into fists, finding her blind idealism endlessly frustrating. Susan stands by the black SUV that she arrived in, opening the door to the back seat. He knows her well enough not to doubt what she has said, that she likely has sincere intentions, the problem is he doesn’t give a shit.

“They’re fuckin’ spooks,” Billy yells, “You can’t trust a word out of their mouths!”

Crisp gets to the back door of the SUV, letting one of the anonymous men enter ahead of her, and she hesitates momentarily. The threat of imprisonment and further experimentation is clouded by the knowledge of what Vought is capable of. She glances cautiously at Susan, who scowls at Billy before looking back at Crisp, “You know I’m not lying about this.” She says, her voice low and measured. Crisp nods slowly, before ducking her head down and clambering into the SUV.

Susan steps away from the car door, her eyes returning to the furious Billy who is marching determinedly, bare foot, towards her. “Butcher,” She exhales and steps forward, blocking his path to the SUV, “you need to calm down. We’re not going to touch her, we just need her help.”

“Really?” He comes to a halt in front her, and she can see the tightness in his face, the tension across his shoulders, “Ain’t like the CIA to ship people off to black sites for human experimentation.”

Susan narrows her eyes, watching the anger roll of him in waves, “That’s what you’re worried about?” She spits out in disbelief, “You honestly expect me to believe that you’re concerned for her welfare, that you’re worried we will violate her human rights?”

Billy glares down at her, “What? You don’t think I’d give a shit about our typhoid Mary getting probed by your scientists? I got a heart you know, give me some credit!”

Susan lets out a laugh, examining the anger on his face, shaking her head, “You don’t give a shit about her.” She has worked with Billy long enough to know his priorities, to know that he is not about to forget about years of bitterness to suddenly feel compassion for some poor supe he pulled out of a van, “You’ve seen the recordings, you’ve seen what she’s capable of. You just give a shit about what she can do for you.”

“You’re right, I’m pissed that you’re locking up nurse fucking Nancy.” He spits out sarcastically.

Susan steps closer to him, lowering her voice, “No, you’re pissed I’m taking away the one thing that might actually be able to kill Homelander.” She watches as he clenches his jaw, knowing that she has touched on the one sparking nerve that is actually driving him, “Normally I wouldn’t give a shit, normally I’d let you work whatever angle it is that you’re trying to exploit with that poor girl – but this can’t wait, this is more important than your vendetta.”

“You’re worried cause Vought might give some cunts in the middle east the sniffles,” Billy growls, “I think you might be the one with the fucked up priorities.”

Susan rolls her eyes. She knows arguing with Billy is an exercise in futility, that in his world all evil is embodied by a single person. “Yeah, well, thankfully you haven’t got your hooks in deep enough for her to see things your way,” She says as she turns and takes a step back towards the SUV, “Thankfully she knows what is at stake.”

* * *

_There is a hiss, a rush of air as the clear panel in front of her slides across and Chris finds herself looking at a man in the usual full protective suit, smiling invitingly through a plastic screen that crosses his face. It is as clinical as every other room she has been in, absent of colour and sterile in every way possible. But it is new, to her at least, this is an area of the building she has never entered before. She had descended flights of stairs and been led through dark corridors, a route she has never walked, just to get here. The whiteness and barrenness of the environment is familiar, but the setting is different enough to make her feel uneasy._

_Nick stands next to her, clad in his usual large hazmat suit. This is now the only uniform that she sees, with some variation on colours or the design of the respirator. Every person in her life now has their face obscured with Perspex or plastic, every inch of their skin covered. There are no aesthetics in her life, no décor in the rooms she walks through, nothing but white scrubs to wear, nothing but white plastic suits to look at. She cannot even remember the last time she saw a patterned tie hanging loosely around Nick’s neck._

_“Christiane,” The man in the room announces her arrival, his voice ever so slightly distorted through the layer of plastic that surrounds his head, “Lovely to finally meet you.”_

_She takes a step forward into the room, her eyes betraying her uncertainty. The room has walls made of glass, fully transparent, and she can see that behind this man lies another room where more protective suits dangle from hooks embedded in the wall. The sterility is overwhelming and makes her nervous. Her eyes dart uncertainly to look at Nick, who nods with encouragement, the plastic of his suit crinkling with the movement._

_“I’m Dr Vogelbaum, I’ve heard so many great things about you.” The man tells her, and this is where he would offer her his hand if he trusted her, but he makes no such move, “I’m just thrilled you’ve agreed to come onto this project.”_

_Chris surveys him uneasily, but nods slowly. She is unsure of him, she is unsure of everything at this point in time, she feels so deeply helpless that even this decision she has made doesn’t feel like her own. She is clinging to the one small sliver of herself that she can dig up, the one small part of her that still naively believes she can help people. “Nice to meet you.” Her voice is quiet and suspicious, but Dr Vogelbaum is not fazed by her apprehension._

_“Do you want to meet your patient?” His voice is bright and encouraging. Chris nervously adjusts the strap that travels across her shoulder, securing her left arm in place across her chest in a sling. She nods, and Dr Vogelbaum stretches out an arm, stepping back, as if inviting her further into the room. Nick places a latex-clad hand on her shoulder and gives it a small squeeze, reminding her she is not alone in this._

_She walks further into the room, and she can see Dr Vogelbaum gesturing towards the large glass wall to her left. She hesitates, before turning to look through it. On the other side of the wall she can see a make-shift hospital room. In the centre is a bed, book marked by metal poles with dangling bags of fluid, some blood, some clear. The sheets on the bed are pulled back, and their white material is stained with patches of sweat and small droplets of blood. In the centre of the mattress, curled up in a foetal position, is a trembling man._

_“Did Dr Ralfson explain the situation to you?” Dr Vogelbaum asked._

_“I did.” Nick speaks up._

_“I want to make sure she understands.” Dr Vogelbaum’s words are deliberate and stern._

_“I don’t really.” Chris says quietly, her eyes glued to the shivering stranger on the other side of the glass, “If I’m being honest,” She sighs and glances back towards the new doctor, “It doesn’t make much sense to me.”_

_“What is it that doesn’t make sense?” Dr Vogelbaum asks, his eyes dart to Nick, “I’ve been told you’re a smart girl.”_

_Chris tries not to flinch at his condescending tone, from the dynamic at play between the two men in the room she can guess the hierarchy. The fear of being locked away again, the fear of not seeing another person’s face, not hearing their voice, for another three years, dampens down every defiant impulse in her body, “It’s just…” She starts, her nervousness obvious, “If there’s an outbreak, why not just collect a sample there? Surely it will be more useful than anything I can do.”_

_“It’s too dangerous, we need to do this in a controlled environment.” She can see him smile through the Perspex, “We know you’ll be able to keep us safe.”_

_Chris frowns, and she looks uneasily at Nick, “But… I could-” She starts, and from Nick’s furrowed brow she knows he is worried, “I could mutate this thing in a totally different way. It could be nothing like the circulating strain -”_

_“We just need it airborne.” Dr Vogelbaum says, as if this is all the explanation Chris needs, as if it explains everything. Chris opens her mouth, wanting to challenge him, wanting to push him until she receives a satisfactory answer, but terrified about what that would mean. “Dr Ralfson should have explained all of this to you -”_

_“He did, I just don’t understand -” She stops herself as she sees his body language change, his shoulders tensing, his eyes narrowing, and she knows that he is irritated, “I just want to make sure I understand what you want me to do and why.” She clears her throat, desperately not wanting to say the wrong thing, “I don’t want to make a mistake.”_

_“Oh, don’t worry honey, you won’t!” Dr Vogelbaum sighs, accepting that her apprehension is down to performance anxiety, “As you've already been told, there’s an emerging epidemic of new strain of Marburg in Uganda, an airborne strain, and they’re struggling to get a lid on it. This patient here, **your** patient,” He stresses this, as if this man behind the glass is some sort of present for her, “He has the A strain of the virus. All we want is for you to go in there, force it to mutate so it behaves like the new strain, and we can develop a vaccine to get ahead of the epidemic. Very straight forward.”_

_Chris’ eyes dart to Nick, who is stone faced and unflinching beneath his visor. The precautions here aren’t just to protect them from her on the off chance she wanted to hurt them, they’re there to protect them from the very thing they want her to do. “You want airborne Marburg?” She chokes this out in disbelief, her eyes darting from Nick to Dr Vogelbaum, who stands with his latex-clad hands clasped in front of him._

_“It’s already airborne, we just want to research it in safe conditions.” Dr Vogelbaum says, as if it is the most obvious thing in the world._

_Chris turns her head to look at the man behind the glass, curled up in his hospital bed, his entire body shaking. It doesn’t make sense, not scientifically at least. She could mutate it in thousands of ways to make the small clump of genetic material spread through the air, none of which are necessarily similar to the apparent new strain emerging on a different continent, none of which necessarily would influence a vaccine. She clenches her jaw, feeling the skin prickle on the back of her neck, trying so hard not to question the logic of this bizarre request._

_“You’ll be saving lives.” She hears Nick’s voice and turns around to face him. His voice is adamant and decisive, and she wants to believe him so badly._

_“You promise?” She whispers, and the question betrays her deep need to believe, while also being far too intelligent to buy into the story they've pieced together. Nick opens his mouth, wanting to make that promise, but no sound comes out._

_“Of course, if this spreads – and it will spread - it will be devastating.” Dr Vogelbaum interrupts, stepping towards her, “You know what the case fatality rate of Marburg is?”_

_Chris inhales sharply and nods, “Yes.” She says bluntly, tearing her eyes away from Nick, “Ninety percent.”_

_“If we get ahead of this, if you do this, you won’t just be saving lives. You’ll be saving the world.” Dr Vogelbaum tells her emphatically. She glances through the glass again and nods._

_“Okay.” She tells him, but there is a strange hardness to her face. Dr Vogelbaum grins broadly, clapping his hands together._

_“You’re making history.” He announces, before turning to Nick, “We should give her some space, she can’t enter the room while we’re standing here. If we catch this thing we won't be able to recover like she can.” Dr Vogelbaum tells him, ushering him back out towards the opening they had stepped through minutes before._

_Chris turns her head and glances over her shoulder, watching them leave before the glass panel lets out another loud hiss and slides across, enclosing her in the transparent box. She takes a few hesitant steps forward towards the opposite side of the room, facing the transparent wall that closes her off from the adjacent chamber with the plastic suits. She watches as the transparent panel closing it off slides backwards, letting her step inside._

_Immediately it shuts behind her, and she jumps slightly as the sound surprises her, putting her on edge. She looks around the airlock at the personal protective equipment, dangling like empty human skin on the walls. She can see another transparent sliding door to her left, and she steps towards it. There is no handle, there are no buttons or levers or switches anywhere nearby. She is surveying the walls around her when another hiss echoes around her and she feels a blast of air as the glass sheet slides out of her way._

_She steps into the room, and immediately she feels exposed. The walls are all made of glass, and behind one of them stands Dr Vogelbaum and Nick, watching her every move with keen eyes. She is used to being watched, she is used to cameras recording her, she is used to seeing faces peering through windows, but this feels different. This feels performative._

_She cautiously approaches the man who is lying in the bed, his face buried in the sheet that lines the mattress. Now that she is in the room she can hear him, he is making constant whimpering noises, betraying the pain that his body is racked with. As she steps next to his bed she is able to cast her eyes over his full body, covered only by a thin hospital gown. Across his arms and legs are blotches of various sizes and colours, some appear to be deep bruises of angry purples and reds, small pin prick sized dots cover most of the skin on his legs, small blisters of blood erupting beneath the surface. She looks up at his face, it is pale and there is a yellow hue to his eyes. They are wide and terrified, and they dart quickly to meet her gaze, cracking open his lips to say something, revealing teeth stained with blood that is oozing from his gums._

_The words that come out of his mouth don’t make sense, and it takes a moment for Chris to realise he is not speaking English. She feels a wave of profound pity wash over her, and she clears her throat, “It’s okay,” She says softly, wanting desperately to comfort him._

_“Laqad tasamamat,” His teeth are clenched, from a combination of the chills rattling through his body and the pain in his muscles,_ _his voice is weak and shaky. Chris kneels down next to the bed so that her eyes are level with his, and she rests her right hand gingerly on the edge of the mattress._

_“I’m so sorry, I don’t understand.” She whispers, but she can see that he is terrified. She narrows her eyes, examining his face. He is not a Vought employee. She knows he is not American. She knows there is something deeply wrong. “How the hell did you get infected.” She whispers to herself, knowing that this man cannot understand a word that comes from her mouth, knowing that he didn’t just contract Marburg by chance, knowing the fact he cannot communicate with her is probably by design._

_“Saeidni,” The man mumbles, and she can see that his eyes are growing heavy. There is blood pooling on the bed sheet, flowing freely from where the cannulas run into his arms. Chris starts to feel a flutter of panic in her chest. He is in the end stages of the disease, his liver is shutting down, his blood is no longer clotting. She looks at his hands, laid out next to his face, his fingers lined with the same petechiae that dot his legs. She wonders what will happen to him if she lets this continue, if she does as she is told, if she induces a mutation and lets the virus continue to eat away at him. Whoever this man is, he is expendable, Vought is willing to let him die._

_She watches as this man shakily reaches out, finding her hand which is settled against the mattress. He wraps his fingers around hers, his weakness even more evident know she can feel how lax his grip is. She mimics his movement, grasping his hand and giving it a small squeeze, hoping the small gesture is enough to comfort him._

_Her eyes dart momentarily to the large glass wall opposite her where Nick and Dr Vogelbaum stand, both with looks of anticipation on their faces. She feels a stir of anger in the pit of her stomach, an indignant rage that she has not felt in years, not since her prolonged isolation. This dying man is no different to her, they are treating him the same way that she has been treated for years, only he doesn’t have the luxury of piecing himself together after they’re done with him._

_“You’re not going to die today.” She tells him quietly. He doesn’t understand but he takes in a desperate, deep breath, “I won’t let you.”_

_The man doesn’t react as he watches her eyes glaze over with a white hue, his entire focus and concentration dedicated to keeping himself breathing. Chris can feel the agony that he is in, the muscle pains, every contact with the bed, even the weight of the sheets, makes his skin feel as if it is on fire. He is bleeding, into his lungs, into his stomach, into his intestines, his brain is swelling and pushing up against his skull. She can feel the virus swimming in his blood, his lymphocytes disintegrating as they are infected, his blood and plasma leaking from his blood vessels._

_She grips his hand tightly and focuses intensely, she floods his system with fresh lymphocytes and dendritic cells, pushing his own immune system fight off the raging infection, she detangles the RNA as it flows through his blood, regenerating the necrotic tissue that fills his kidneys and liver, patching together his blood vessels to stem the bleeding. She feels his blood pressure climb as his entire system comes back into balance, and she hears his breathing start to steady as the fluid clears from his lungs. She feels the last small clump of RNA disintegrate and she blinks, her icy blue eyes reappearing._

_“Madha hadath” She hears his voice, stronger now, “madha faealt”_

_She turns to meet his eyes and she can see the confused and apprehensive frown on his face. “You’re going to be okay now.” She tells him, and he pulls his hand away from hers, pushing himself upright. She is not surprised at his reaction, she is not expecting a thank you or any gratitude. The diseas that was bleeding him dry and swelling his brain left him delirious. He is not going to remember, and it is a small mercy that Chris is deeply grateful for._

_“Min 'ant,” The man narrows his eyes as he uncurls himself from the foetal position he had been trapped in and pushes himself upright, his deep brown eyes surveying his surroundings, “'ayn 'ana”._

_Chris slowly rises from where she has been crouched next to his bed, not understanding any of the sounds coming from his mouth. She hears a thud, a hard strike against the glass wall opposite, and her eyes snap up to look at the two men who have been observing her. Dr Vogelbaum looks panicked, his fist pressed against the smooth transparent surface, his eyes wide, his face red through the perspex._

_Chris clenches her jaw, partially from the terror that is starting seep over her skin, and partially from the outrage she is feeling, realising that the suffering extends beyond her. She looks down at the man who she has just stolen out of the grip of death, and she can see that he is just as frightened as she is, “'ayn eayilati” these words are urgent and filled with pain, “'ayn zawjati”._

_Chris wants to comfort him but she doesn’t even know where to begin. She sighs and takes a step backwards, hearing the hiss as the door she had entered the room through slides open. She needs to leave, Dr Vogelbaum is gesturing angrily through the walls, pointing towards the open door to the airlock._

_“I hope…” She starts to speak to the man, as he pulls at the cannulas which are still embedded in his arms, “I hope you get out of here.” She tells him, “I hope you have a happier life than I will.”_

_She walks over to the airlock, stepping inside, bracing herself and closing her eyes as the door slides shut behind her and she feels jets of compressed air blast down from above, a glaring UV light sterilising her, just in case she has Marburg Virus clinging to her skin. She blinks as she feels the air stop and walks towards the other end of the airlock, looking through the sliding glass door to see Dr Vogelbaum standing behind it, breathing quick and deep, steaming up the Perspex screen in front of his face._

_The door slides back and she feels as if he is going to rush at her, as if he is going to reach out and strangle her. He restrains himself, and instead curls his gloved hands into tight fists, “What did you do?” He growls._

_“I made him better.” She says simply. Nick comes into view behind Dr Vogelbaum, lingering at the entrance of the chamber, and even with the visor obscuring his expression, Chris could swear he has a smile on his face, “I stopped you from killing him.”_

_“No, you stopped us from saving thousands of lives!” He bellows. Chris takes in a slow and deep breath, trying to steady herself, trying not to be frightened or angry, trying not to think about what they could possibly have in store for her._

_“I don’t know what you are trying to achieve here,” She says flatly, “but I know it’s not saving lives.”_

_Dr Vogelbaum lets out a laugh of disbelief and shakes his head, turning to look at Nick who lingers in the distance, “This is your miracle worker? This spoiled brat?”_

_Nick shrugs, “She just cured someone of Marburg, in seconds, just by touching them, right in front of your eyes,” He says, and Chris recognises a familiar note to his voice. Pride. “If that’s not a miracle I don’t know what is.”_

_“Fat lot of good that does me!” Dr Vogelbaum growls._

_“It wasn’t for you.” Chris says, and he turns to glower at her, “It was for that helpless man who was dying in there, who you were letting die.”_

_“Helpless man?” He shakes his head, raising a gloved hand to point towards the figure behind the transparent walls, “We pulled that man from the rubble of the American Embassy in Baghdad, after him and his counterparts murdered 14 U.S. citizens. He is a terrorist.”_ _Chris slowly turns her head to look through the glass at the man, he is standing beside his hospital bed, his brows pulled together in a frown that is tinged with both fear and anger. “You saved a fucking terrorist, I hope you’re proud of yourself.” Dr Vogelbaum spits out, turning and storming away. Chris doesn’t look to watch him leave, instead her eyes lock with the stranger behind the glass and she feels sadness swell in her chest._

_“You shouldn’t have done that.” She hears Nick say, and she smiles to herself._

_“You knew what I was going to do.” She sighs, and she manages to tear her gaze away from the dark stare of the man behind the glass, “You knew exactly what I’d do once I got in there.”_

_He is smiling beneath the protective gear, but it’s a smile that is tinged with tragedy. He knows that all of the things he loves about her, her compassion, her wide-eyed naivety, are the exact things that are destroying her. “I know.” He says simply. “I just wish you didn’t. I just wish you could do what they ask.”_

_Chris shrugs, but she understands why he is saying this. He isn’t chastising her, she is far too old now, and far too weathered, to be scolded. She knows that her actions will have devastating consequences. She blinks, and Nick watches the white cloud descend over her eyes. She reaches behind her, unclipping the sling that is strapped around her neck. She slips it off her shoulder and straightens her arm. Nick watches as she holds her left hand out in front of her and flexes her fingers, curling them into a fist and straightening them again. She sighs and Nick can see the mist dissipating. She sees no point in the discomfort now, she knows there is plenty of fresh pain coming her way again._

_“Dr Vogelbaum’s wrong, by the way.” She mutters._

_Nick frowns, not understanding, “About what?”_

_“That man – he’s not the terrorist.” Chris tells him, and she takes a step towards him, offering him the sling she has just removed from her arm, “We are.”_

* * *

At every bend in the road Crisp finds herself sliding slightly over the smooth seats in the back of the SUV, the sound of crinkling plastic breaking through the tension as her body weight shifts onto either of the two men who sit next to her. She is uncomfortable seated in the middle, her knees pulled together in front of her, her hands resting on her thighs, trying her best not to feel claustrophobic.

“So, their plans,” Crisp breaks the tense silence that has been circulating in the car since they left the motel. She had watched through the tinted windows as Billy and Susan argued in the parking lot of the motel. Billy’s anger had been palpable, and there was a small seed of guilt growing in the pit of her stomach. He had wanted her to stay, she wasn’t sure why exactly, but his reaction had been visceral and desperate. She took the first window of opportunity to leave, and the misplaced sense of loyalty she has to Billy is gnawing at her. “What were they, they never really let me in on any long-term strategy.”

Susan is sitting in the passenger’s seat, a tall man in a suit is driving the car, his eyes darting anxiously between the rear-view mirror and the road in front of him. Susan glances over her shoulder to meet Crisp’s eyes as she asks this question and frowns, “Let’s wait until we get you back safely to the office -”

“Please.” Crisp interjects, leaning forward, the strap of her seatbelt cutting into her collarbone. Susan looks at the girl, her eyes wide and earnest, and she feels a twinge of pity. She had spent the previous evening watching the videos that they had managed to scrape off the encrypted hard drive. She had watched this woman being tortured, she had watched her bones breaking, she had watched her being burned alive, she had seen her trying desperately to make moral choices within an inherently immoral system. Susan clears her throat, deciding she has been kept in the dark long enough.

“From what we’ve found, Vought had two strands of research in the CRISPR program. One was focused on establishing your capabilities and replicating your infection, as an alternative to their compound V program.” Susan watches as Crisp raises her eyebrows, a flicker of recognition crossing her features. She nods.

“That one I figured.” Crisp murmurs. “But the virus kills everything.”

“Hence the second strand.” Susan’s voice lowers.

“You mentioned biological warfare?” Crisp’s voice has an edge of fear to it, and Susan nods slowly. “I heard them mention bioweapons before but they never explained it. They never told me what they were planning.”

“There’s a lot of money in weapons manufacturing, supes included.” Susan tells her, “And from what I understand… from the protocols that we found… they weren’t just considering using you as a weapon, but trying to use you to develop new weapons. Modify viruses so that they were prime candidates.”

Susan watches as a horrified look of realisation crosses Crisp’s face and she leans back in her seat, “The vaccine programme.” Crisp whispers. Susan narrows her eyes.

“Vaccine programme?”

“Nick told me that Vought were working with infectious disease... trying to develop new vaccines.” Her voice is quiet as everything slides into place, “What they were asking me to do didn’t make any sense. I… I didn’t realise.”

“What did you do?” Susan’s voice is dark, sunken by fear. Crisp shakes her head, glancing down at her lap.

“Nothing.” She admits, “I couldn’t bring myself to do what they asked…”

“Good.” Susan says bluntly, “You probably saved a lot of lives.”

“Lost them a lot of money.” Crisp says with a shrug, glancing back up at Susan, “What’s the issue then, if they never managed to develop a weapon is that not a good thing?”

Susan nods, “It is.” She admits, “The issue is that they still have an illegal stockpile of deadly viruses they don’t have the clearance to house.”

“And you want me to…”

Susan smiles, “We want to depose you.”

Crisp narrows her eyes, “That’s… it?”

“For now.” Susan sighs and turns back around to look back out onto the road, “We just need a warrant to seize the samples. We will want to keep you around though, someone with your talents is probably good to have on call when seizing and destroying samples of infectious diseases.”

Crisp raises her eyebrows, feeling a rush of relief come over her. She was expecting more experimentation, more poking, more prodding, more needles and more death. The idea of sitting down and giving her statement, of telling her story, of potentially bringing people to justice by doing nothing except telling the truth, was both hugely anticlimactic and liberating. “Thank you.” Crisp says quietly.

“No problem.”

“We’re being followed.” The deep gravelly voice of the man behind the steering wheel startles Crisp, and his hand reaches up to the rear-view mirror, twisting it to get a better view.

“What?” Susan hisses, and she turns again in her seat, craning her neck to look through the back window. She narrows her eyes, and Crisp watches as an expression of frustration and irritation unfolds across her face. “Fucking Butcher.” Crisp pushes herself up in the back seat, her seat belt straining against her, turning her head to follow Susan’s gaze. She can see the red Honda behind them, she can’t make out the driver but she recognises the vehicle.

“Why’s he following us?” Crisp asks, her voice quiet but Susan can’t help notice the naïve confusion. Billy had managed to find his perfect mark, someone who had been so cut off from the world that she was unable to see through his bullshit.

“Because he’s a fucking idiot.” Susan growls. She sighs and turns back around in her seat, her eyes flickering over to the driver.

“Want me to do anything about it?” He asks, a grimace of concern on his face as he continues to fixate on the rear-view mirror.

“No, let him follow,” Susan murmurs, “It would be pointless to try and lose him, he knows where we’re going anyway.”

Crisp turns around, settling down in the back seat, her gaze returning to the large windscreen that faces her through he gap in the front seats. Her eyes soak in the city scape that they are driving through, the tall buildings, the wide road, the constant buzz of traffic and people. It all still feels very alien to her, she feels conspicuously out of place, but it is also such a relief when compared to the white walls of a lab. As her eyes fixate on the road in front of them, she frowns, leaning forward slightly, “What’s that?” She asks quietly.

The driver is preoccupied with the rear-view mirror, anxiously checking the red car that is stalking them. Susan glances back over her shoulder at Crisp, “What?”

“That.“ Crisp repeats, and raises a hand to point directly in front of her, indicating through the wind screen of the car. She is not sure what she is looking at, but she has enough knowledge of the world to know that it is out of place. In front of them, in the dead centre of the open road, is a man. She feels as if he has just appeared, as if he has just dropped from the sky right into incoming traffic. They are rushing straight towards him and he is standing with his hands on his hips, a stupid smirk on his face, no intention of moving. Crisp narrows her eyes, wondering if she is hallucinating.

Susan turns back around, and her face drops in horror. “Shit-”

The collision happens both suddenly and in slow motion. Crisp can hear metal crunching, collapsing in on itself. She is thrown forward, and instinctively she clamps her eyes shut as she feels her body leaving the seat, suspended in mid-air. The momentum pulling her forward is only held back by the thin scrap of fabric that is strapped over her body. As it digs into her shoulder, as she feels her collarbone snap beneath the pressure, she hears the sound of smashing glass and cool shards cascade over her from above. There is a jolt, and suddenly they are no longer in the air, instead her body crashes down into the seat beneath her, the entire vehicle shaking with the impact.

She tries to suck a breath in, but her chest feels tight, and she is not sure if it is from the seat belt digging deep into her flesh or if her chest wall is cramping under the pressure. She keeps her eyes closed, her ears are ringing, and she can hear someone scream in the distance. She sucks in another gulp of air and feels her chest expand. She exhales slowly and cracks open her eyes.

The car is decimated. In front of her the windshield is gone, the entire hood of the car is crumpled in on itself and curled around a conspicuous gap. It looks as if the SUV has struck a tree, only there is no tree in front of them, only open road. She can smell gasoline, and smoke, and the overly familiar scent of blood. She looks down at herself, she is littered with small, twinkling shards of glass. The entire length of the vehicle has buckled, leaving her leaning forward at a sickening angle. She is relatively untouched, save a few small scratches and an aching collar bone, but the seat belt that presses down on her chest stopped her from spiralling out between the front seats and onto the asphalt. She takes in a deep shaky breath, and forces herself to look around the car to inspect the damage.

She glances into the front of the SUV, her body angled forward uncomfortably in the contorted seats. She grits her teeth as she sees the figure of Susan, thrown forward, lying across the twisted metal of the hood. She looks like a marionette whose strings have been cut, her limbs splayed out at painful angles, the glinting glass that is in her hair look like droplets of water. Crisp knows she is hurt, she can just about make out the unsteady, laboured rise and fall of Susan’s chest. There is blood pooling on the chipped paint beneath her head.

“Susan -” Crisp chokes out, her voice strained. She glances down, reaching out, trying to find the button that will release her seat belt, “Don’t move, you’re going to be okay!’

She finds the red button embedded in the folds of the seat and pushes down hard, but nothing releases. She grits her teeth and jabs her thumb into mechanism, but nothing. She reaches up and pulls angrily against the strap, pushing down with her feet, trying to leverage her body weight to force it loose.

“Here, let me help you.” She hears an unfamiliar voice and her head snaps up.

She can see the face of a man through the gap where the side window should be. Crisp has never met this man before but he is undoubtedly familiar, and the smile on his face is disgusting and misplaced. Her eyes widen as the door he is peering through vanishes, the car shaking with the force of the door being wrenched off its hinges. The unconscious man in the hazmat suit next to her topples over, dangling loosely out of the new hole in the side of the SUV.

Crisp holds her breath, a primal part of her brain taking over. She claws furiously at the strap holding her down, wrapping her hands around it so tight her knuckles blanch, straining against the material. She sees a hand reach in, clad with a thick red glove trimmed in shimmering gold. She watches as the man next to her is pulled out from the cramped space of the backseat, thrown haphazardly out of the vehicle as if he is just an idle piece of debris. Crisp’s eyes widen further in horror as the new arrival leans back into the vacuous space he has made for himself.

“There, that’s better.” He sighs, reaching out to place his hands on either side of the opening, “Now I can get a good look at you.”

Crisp is frozen as she stares at him, her eyes unblinking, her entire body tense with fear. She recognises the blonde hair, the blue suit with the garish American flag acting as a cape, attached to his shoulders by large embossed busts of eagles. He is dressed like an action figure, like an eight-year-old boys fantasy of what a hero should look like, but the malice behind his eyes sends a sharp chill across Crisp’s skin. She has seen this man pull dying people out of cars before on the news, she has seen him standing waving at adoring crowds, shaking the hands of politicians and stopping bullets with his own body. None of that ever convinced her of his altruism. After spending decades trapped by Vought, she had grown to recognise Homelander as a star-spangled opportunist toeing the company line. 

“Let’s get you out of there,” He sighs, and he steps half into the vehicle, leaning forward and reaching out to grab the seat belt that has ensnared Crisp., “Can’t have you here when the cops show up.” His fingers wrap around the material and he tugs, the entire mechanism coming away at the base of the seat, releasing Crisp. She feels her body drop forward and she catches herself on the two seats in front of her, her eyes glancing up to see that the driver has been crushed against the steering wheel, his eyes open, vacantly staring at nothing.

Crisp’s single mindedness takes over, and she grips the edges of the two seats in front of her, pushing herself through the gap. Susan is not moving, and she lies on the threshold of the windscreen, half in, half out. Crisp can see the steady stream of blood flowing from beneath her motionless body, there is a pulse to it and the volume hints at just how badly wounded this woman is. She hasn’t got much time. Crisp grits her teeth and reaches forward, trying to clamber through the small space in the interior of the SUV. She reaches out a hand, all she wants to do is touch her, all she needs to do is get her hand on one exposed patch of skin and she can save Susan's life.

“Where do you think you’re going?” She hears his voice but she is stretching her arm forward, spreading her fingers as if by extending every muscle she can cross the small distance between herself and Susan. She feels the grip of Homelander’s glove around her ankle, and suddenly it seems as if her heart has stopped in her chest.

It is one smooth motion, with no effort on his part, and she is flung from the vehicle. She barely has time to process what is happening, but she is flying momentarily, seeing the interior of the car move around her, the street move around her, and suddenly her back hits the ground and all she can see is sky.

She blinks, pain exploding across the muscles of her back, across her shoulders, and she cannot catch her breath. She is winded, her diaphragm is in a spasm, and she coughs loudly, repeatedly, trying to suck air into her paralysed lungs. She doesn’t understand what just happened, but she can feel asphalt beneath the material of Billy’s shirt and the skin on the back of her legs. She hears footsteps, and suddenly her view of the sky is obstructed by the sinister smiling face that broke open the SUV.

“I’ve got to admit.” His grin is cast in shadow as he blocks out the sunlight, “You’re a bit of a disappointment.”

Crisp attempts to roll over, tensing her muscles and coughing violently. She cranes her neck and sees she has been tossed several feet away from the crumpled SUV. She grits her teeth, she can see Susan's unconscious body bleeding over the warped metal of the bonnet, and a bubble of anger starts to grow in her stomach, “Yeah well,” She wheezes out, her eyes darting back to look at his infuriatingly smug expression, “I thought you’d be taller.”

He laughs, in a way that tells Crisp he is truly savouring this moment. He steps over her, placing a foot on either side of her body, obstructing her view of the smoking SUV, making sure she has no choice but to look at him. She clenches her jaw, and glares defiantly up at him. She doesn’t know this man, but she knows what he represents in her world, she knows that he has been sculpted, developed and idealised by the same people who kept her trapped in white rooms, and she knows why he is here.

“I’m guessing you’re the search party?” She hisses, her chest aching with the effort of speaking. She has a cracked rib, she knows it, but she would rather be underestimated than comfortable, “Would have thought that would have been a bit a below your pay grade?”

“I was feeling generous today.” He kneels down slightly, bringing himself closer to her. Crisp’s eyes dart around the scene, the growing crowd of people on the sidewalk, the traffic piling up behind the wreck.

“Is this not bad for your image?” She asks, a genuine note of confusion to her voice. “Crashing a car, killing a bunch of innocent people?” She is trying to gauge the distance between herself and the SUV, how far could she get if she made a run for Susan.

“No one is innocent if you dig enough, it’s easy to spin a narrative. There’s an entire team of people who can manage that,” He tells her with a low voice, before straightening up slightly, raising a hand to the crowd of people who are watching on at a distance, star struck and apprehensive. “Have it all under control!” He calls to them, as if this is some sort of routine publicity stunt.

Crisp takes her moment to try and roll out from beneath him, twisting on her side and pushing off the ground. She has barely managed to pull her legs out from beneath him when she feels his hand grip the back of her neck, and she is forced into an upright position. She winces as he tightens his hold on her, strands of her hair bunched beneath his fingers.

“Well that was stupid.” He laughs, and he seems genuinely amused. She is abruptly twisted around, his hand catching her under the chin, holding her by the throat. Suddenly, her feet aren’t on the ground, and Crisp’s hands clamber at the glove that is pressing into her skin.

“Worth a shot, right?” She grunts as she tries to wriggle free from his grasp. Her feet are dangling, and she points her toes as if she is reaching for the asphalt again.

He shakes his head, “Madelyn wants you alive,” He hisses at her through his teeth, and Crisp narrows her eyes, watching his expression change, frustration coming over his features. “Not exactly sure why, she seems awfully worried about some girl that no one has ever heard of before.” His hand is clamping down hard around her throat.

Crisp grasps onto his wrist with both her hands, using her grip to leverage her bodyweight and take some of the pressure off. She glances down, and she sees the expanding space between her feet and the ground, rising above the scene of the crime. She is flying, and there is a part of her that can’t help but marvel at it. She glances back at him, at the deep, burning rage behind his eyes, “Why can’t they just let me go?” The question seeps out from between her clenched teeth.

“You’re too important to them.” He growls. Crisp knows he can crush her windpipe with the simple curl of his fingers, but she is more concerned with the pile of twisted metal that is somewhere beneath her dangling feet. Homelander lets out a chuckle, deep and delighted, as he watches her squirm, as he watches her small hands grab onto his forearm desperately. He thinks he can see fear in her wide blue eyes, “They clearly haven’t had the chance to see you in action yet. They might have to reconsider how special they think you are.”

“I’m not that special.” Crisp chokes out. She furrows her brow as she tries to quickly examine the man who has his hand around her throat and is dangling her in mid-air. She doesn’t want to do anything, not here, not in public, not with crowds of onlookers staring up and cheering on the person who clearly wants her dead. Homelander was right when he said they could spin a narrative, and she doesn’t want to become a convenient target. She can hear sirens in the distance, and she knows she doesn’t have much time left. She scans his body looking for exposed flesh, but every inch of it is covered in the thick material of his suit.

“I’m inclined to agree with you.” He hisses, and his arm bends as he brings her in closer to him. He is baring his teeth, and Crisp can tell he is restraining himself, she knows that all he wants to do is crush her. There is a vitriol rolling off him that feels far too personal to be comfortable, “You know, accidents happen.”

Crisp is close enough now that she can feel his breath her face, and she moves one hand to his shoulder, pretending to brace herself. She can feel the tension of his muscles beneath the material, he is almost trembling. She wonders how quickly she can move her hand to his face, to the small amount of exposed flesh above his collar. How quick it would take to slam the palm of her hand down against his skin and give him an aneurysm. “I can always say you fought back,” He is whispering now, “I can always say I had no choice, you were dangerous, you were out of control.”

She wonders how it will look, if she murders Homelander in the middle of a public street, all eyes on her, the sound of sirens growing louder as they rush to the scene of the crime. She wonders if she will be condemning herself to a life of imprisonment. She wonders if it will make a difference, if that’s always been her future anyway. She grits her teeth and inhales sharply, preparing herself.

“OI!” A deep angry shout breaks ricochets through the street, “Supercunt! Pick on someone your own size!”

Homelander’s head snaps around, and Crisp has just enough time to follow his gaze to see Billy standing beneath them. They are at a sufficient enough height, framed by towering buildings, that he seems bizarrely small, the volume of his voice dampened as it fights against gravity and wind to meet them. She can still see what he has in his hands, a large rifle, the barrel aimed upwards at the pair of them. There is a bang, and the sound of metal striking and pinging off a hard surface. Homelander barely flinches, a slight breeze through Crisp’s hair the only suggestion that Billy’s aim was accurate.

Homelander laughs, “You have got to be kidding me,” He murmurs to himself, and glances back at Crisp, “This is your rescue party?” He cocks his head to one side in bemused disbelief, but his face drops as he hears the wails of sirens.

“What?” Crisp asks, letting out her own small laugh, “You worried what the cops will say when they realise that those dead people down there are C.I.A agents?” There is another bang, and the bullet pings off his shoulder, leaving only a small smoking trail behind it. Crisp glances down and can’t help but smile as she watches Billy furiously shouting at the pair of them.

Homelander glowers at her, and she glances back up in time to see him look down and survey the distance between them and the ground. “Guess it’s your unlucky day.” He sighs, “Tell your boyfriend down there I say hi.”

Crisp furrows her brow, confused, “Wha-” She starts, but suddenly the pressure around her throat is gone and is replaced by the wrenching pull of gravity. Her hands slip from around his arm, without even trying to stop herself, she falls.

She feels the air rushing around her, she sees the windows and bricks whizzing by in front of her, she can hear the screams of strangers, and she looks down in time to see the asphalt rush up to meet her. She hits the ground with a sickening dull thud, feet first, the shock of the impact travelling through her legs. They give out beneath her, and her left shoulder slams down, her head striking and bouncing off the road.

Billy watches her plummet to earth and tosses his sniper rifle to one side, sprinting forward towards her, ready to gather her up from the heap that she has become on the floor. As he reaches her side he leans down with his arms outstretched, but stops. She is pushing herself upright, her legs bending beneath her, straightening up, and as she brushes her tousled white hair out of her face he is greeted by those glazed eyes.

“Thanks.” She says breathlessly. He frowns, his brow furrowing as he looks at the length of her. There isn’t a mark on the white expanse of skin on her legs, not even a grazed knee from where she buckled onto the concrete. Her cheeks are flushed, but she looks almost untouched.

“You alright?” He murmurs, taking a step forward, his arms still outstretched as if he is worried she can no longer hold herself upright. 

“Yeah, I’m fine.” She says, and he watches as the mist dissipates and her blue eyes start darting around the street. The sirens are blaring, and she glances upwards towards the sky, realising there is nothing above them but clouds.

“He ain’t gonna stick around to explain this.” Billy growls, and his eyes dart to the crowds of people on the side of the street, the glare of the red and blue as the cars round the corners ahead, “And we ain’t gonna either.” He says gruffly, reaching forward and grabbing Crisp’s wrist.

“Wait!” She cries as he pulls on her arm, dragging her towards the other end of the street, trying to break into a sprint. He doesn’t listen, and continues on, trailing her behind him. As he runs he reaches out with his free hand and picks up the discarded rifle.

“Susan!” Crisp yells, her feet are hastily moving because they have no choice, beating down hard on the sidewalk as Billy twists down a street, taking them off the main thoroughfare.

“What about her?” He shouts back at her, feeling her fighting against his grip. He knows they only have a couple of minutes to make their exit before the scene is surrounded, before every street is covered by cops or spooks. He knows he needs to get her off the street and away from prying eyes, away from Vought’s constant surveillance.

”She’s hurt!” Crisp shouts, she is sprinting to keep up with Billy but she twists her arm, fighting against his grip. He pulls her across the road, dipping into a long, narrow alleyway, “I need to get back to her.”

“You ain’t fucking going back!” The muscles in his wrist flex as he clamps down harder on her wrist. He rushes out onto another main street and he can see his discarded Honda parked on the ahead, half up on the curb, where he had discarded it in his rush to get to Crisp.

“She’s dying!” The desperation in Crisp’s voice is jarring, and Billy knows that he is playing a dangerous game dragging her along like this, that having his bare hand curled tightly around her wrist is tempting fate. The urgency he is feeling is seeping into anger, and he stops abruptly. The momentum with which they were moving continues to carry Crisp forward and she stumbles behind him, colliding clumsily against his shoulder. He exhales with frustration, and turns around to face her, releasing his grip.

“You hear those sirens, you see those cops back there? If she’s dying they’ll fucking sort it, alright?” He barks at her. He doesn’t like the idea of Susan lying bleeding on the asphalt back there anymore than Crisp does, despite the tension, despite the relative antagonism, he has always had an ally in Susan. Crisp can see that in his face and in the edge of his voice, and she feels her heart sink, “If you go back there they’ll either lock you up or you’ll have to burn through every fucking cop they have to get away, you willing to do that?”

Crisp looks up at him with wide eyes and slowly shakes her head, “I can’t just leave her there –“

“Yeah, you can. You have to. They’ll cut her out of that wreck and cart her off to Bellevue and you ain’t gonna stop them. That ain’t your job.”

“This happened because of me –“

Billy cuts her off with a sardonic laugh, throwing his hands in the air and shaking his head, “All you fucking Supes are the same. Let me tell you a little truth about the universe, sweet heart. The sun don’t revolve around you.” He reaches out, his patience tipping over the thin edge he has been walking all morning, and grabs her by the scruff of the shirt, “This happened because some cunt dropped out of the sky.”

He is close enough to Crisp that she can examine the rage that is blaring across his face, the frustration twisted across his features, and she feels a deep tug of compassion for him. This is hatred, pure and unadulterated, coming off him in waves, and she slowly nods. “Okay.” The word is small and quiet, but there is no fear in it, “You’re right.”

Billy stalls, “’Scuse me?”

“You’re right.” She repeats, her voice level and tempered, “This wasn’t me. This was Homelander. This was Vought.”

Billy narrows his eyes, and he wants to assume she is patronising him, but the determined earnestness in her voice tips him into uncertainty. He nods, “’Course I’m right,” He growls, and he realises that he is still in her face, that he is close enough to see the flick of each eyelash, that the material of the shirt that she is wearing, _his_ shirt, is still scrunched beneath his fingers. He clears his throat and releases her, taking a deliberate step back, “Now get in the fucking car.”


	14. Ballistics

_The more you have, the more that people want from you_  
_More you burn away, the more the people earn from you_  
_More you pull away, the more that they depend on you_

* * *

Crisp looks out at the decaying front of the building, the battered sign above the entrance gives nothing away with its peeling paint and faded letters. She is unsure of what it used to be, possibly a restaurant, possibly a bar, but now it is just a shell that is hidden in plain sight, in the depths of neglected streets and cracked pavements. She casts her eyes over to Billy who turns the keys in the ignition and the hum of the engine disappears. 

“What is this place?” She asks him, Billy doesn’t look at her, instead he turns his head to inspect the building they have just pulled up outside.

“Somewhere to lay low and keep our noses clean.” He grunts, moving to get out of the car. Crisp follows his movements, rising out of the car and following him towards the dark doorway, embedded into the wall.

When she steps inside it is clear that this no one’s home, there is a linoleum floor that peels at the edges, faking a pattern of black and white tiles across the large room, and there is light cracking in from outside through small slats in the blinds. Whatever this room once homed has been gutted, and now there is an out of place dark green sofa sitting conspicuously in one corner of the room, a TV set facing it. The air smells of tobacco and grease. In the centre of the room sits a large wooden table, some discarded Manilla folders strewn across its surface, papers tumbling out of them. There is a thick film of dust over everything.

Billy has a large duffel bag draped over his shoulder, similar to the one that Susan had handed him but this one seems heavier. He drops it to the floor, a large clunk letting Crisp know that there is concrete beneath the linoleum.

“Well darlin’” Billy murmurs, stepping further inside. “Ain’t the ritz but it’ll do.”

Crisp nods and folds her arms across her chest. She feels as if she’s being dragged by the tides, at the mercy of either Vought or Billy, being tossed about at their will. It’s a level of instability she is not used to, and any helplessness that she feels is quickly stifled by the novelty of change.

“Cosy.” She murmurs. Billy shrugs, taking a few steps forward and pushing open a door to his right. He disappears behind it, vanishing for several seconds before coming back out into the large room, nursing a large bag of chips his hands.

He opens it, a pop echoing off the walls as the seal is broken, and he dips a hand into the bag, retrieving a chip and nonchalantly throwing it into his mouth. His eyes dart back to Crisp as he crunches down on it, and he smirks.

“Wanna crisp, Crisp?” He asks her as he chews, far too proud of his own pun, holding out the bag. She slowly walks over to him and dips her hand in, taking a handful, and slowly she pops them into her mouth. They are stale.

“What’s this stuff?” She asks, motioning to the discarded paperwork that litters the table.

“That’s just shit from some old jobs, ain’t been here a while.” Crisp takes a step back and makes her way over to the table, her eyes pouring over the discarded documents. Suddenly she feels something sharp and hard swing against the back of her calf, her leg buckling slightly with the sudden force. She spins around, her eyes wide with confusion, and sees Butcher standing close behind her, casually staring at the exposed skin of her legs, mechanically spooning chips into his mouth.

“Did you just kick me?” She asks. Her voice is sharp, more from confusion than annoyance.

“Yeah,” Billy nods, his eyes still trained on her shins, “Wanted to see if it’d leave a mark.”

“You worried I’m anaemic?” She asks incredulously. He shakes his head.

“Nah, love,” He murmurs, “You just got dropped ten floors and didn’t flinch.”

She furrows her brow, not understanding his interest, “And?”

Billy finally glances away from her unmarked legs and meets her eyes, shrugging “That’s a bit more than a hangover cure.”

“I’m versatile.” She tells him. She had restored more than half his blood volume the other night as well, yet that is seemingly irrelevant.

“That you fuckin’ are.” Billy states, “It’s one thing to set a few broken bones, crash fucking landing without even a sprain is another story.”

“I’ve had my bones broken enough times,” She tells him. She can remember the vices and the sledgehammers, her arms and legs bending at bizarre angles, “Eventually you just figure out how to make it stop.”

He is not really looking at her, instead he is examining her. His eyes are tight in their corners, scanning her spotless skin and the scuffs on her denim shorts. She is being sized up, and as uncomfortable as it is, she doesn’t feel threatened. “You ever been shot?” Billy abruptly asks.

Crisp purses her lips together, understanding the path that he is trying to lead her down. She shakes her head, “No.” She says dismissively. She remembers the early days of testing, she remembers smelling her own flesh cooking. Vought’s attempts to groom her into a self-made supe had been abruptly shut down the moment she was burned alive. She does not want to revisit that.

She turns to look back down at the documents on the table and she can see Billy shrug out of the corner of her eye, crumpling the foil bag into a tight ball before tossing it to one side. She reaches out and lets her fingertips lightly touch the paper, looking at the block type writing on the pages, her fingers leaving marks in the dust. There are stamps on some of them, the red word blazing out against the stained cream surface ‘restricted’. She recognises the Vought water mark staining their surface.

Crisp picks up one of the pages cautiously, it is old and has likely been sitting here for years, the layer of dust thick on its surface, the paper yellowing from the light that soaked in between the blinds. There is a name on it that she finds familiar, laced throughout numerous paragraphs. ‘Lamplighter’. She narrows her eyes, and it slowly dawns on her that she is standing in front of a table covered with abandoned, highly confidential information about the Supe’s at Vought.

She frowns, the bleakness of Billy’s life coming into even more sharp focus as she realises she has landed right in the centre of his obsession.

There is a sound, like a small burst of air releasing into the atmosphere, and again Crisp feels something sharp and hard hit against the back of her calf. She feels frustration start to rise as she immediately turns to face Billy, but this time her leg gives out beneath her, and pain rips through her muscle. She lets out a gasp as the momentum of her movement causes her to topple, her foot slipping against something slick and wet, and her ass hits the linoleum with a dull thud.

“What the fuck!” She cries out. There is blood on the floor, and her eyes dart up to find a grinning Billy standing a few feet away, next to the open duffel bag. He is holding a hand gun, the elongated barrel of a silencer screwed into the bore.

“Tick that one off the bucket list.” He tells her smugly, the barrel still aimed at her.

“That wasn’t an invitation.” She growls. Billy can already see her eyes misting over, not missing a beat, the blood flowing from the ripe wound in her muscle stops as a bullet falls out, crumpled from its sudden impact with her bone. He steps forward again, standing over her, and squeezes the trigger.

“What are you doing?” She cries out as the bullet tears through her shin. Her eyes are wide but still milky white, and as suddenly as the angry, red wound appears it starts to close up.

“Giving you some practice.” He says casually, re-orienting his aim. There is another sharp sound of air releasing as he pulls the trigger once more, this bullet shattering her kneecap.

She doesn’t even flinch this time, as soon as the bullet exits through the back of her knee she is already pulling the fragments of bone together, fusing them at the seams. She looks up at Billy with her face contorted in confusion, “Because I need practice getting shot?“ She spits out. “I’m okay with being an amateur.”

“You get shot, you slow down.” He grunts, “This way’s quicker.”

Crisp still doesn’t understand as he squeezes the trigger and another bullet rips through the air and lodges itself in the meat between her tibia and fibia. She grits her teeth, reaching up and grasping the edge of the table as she forces the muscles around the bullet to contract and push the slug of metal out of her flesh. She sweeps her feet beneath her and hauls herself up, anxious not to get the blood, pooling beneath her, on the light blue denim of her shorts.

“Quicker for what?” She glares at him as she pulls herself into a standing position, not wanting to be sprawled out beneath him for longer than necessary. The blood that is staining the bare skin of her leg is the only evidence of the multiple bullets that have torn through her shin. “I’m not in a rush to get anywhere.”

“For when we cut that fuckers wings.” Billy says, as if this is obvious. “When we burn them down to the ground.”

Crisp stares back at him with white eyes, clenching her jaw. The anger she feels towards Vought is different to his, there is a hollowness to it, a despair that paralyses her. His rage has purpose and drive. He is single minded and obsessed, and every time she looks at him she can see the tragedy of it, but she deeply envies his clarity. “What makes you think you can do that?” Her voice is tight with fear.

Billy raises the gun again. This time he extends his arm directly in front of him, the barrel of the gun facing forward, trained on the patch of skin between Crisp’s hazy white eyes. He remembers his introduction to her, tied down to a chair, leaning into his gun. He smirks, and squeezes the trigger again.

There is a a crack and hiss of air as the bullet leaves the gun. Crisp’s hand darts up to grab his wrist, her other gripping the muzzle of the gun and wrenching it from his grasp, grunting from the effort. She takes a step backwards as she releases his arm and tosses the gun into her free hand, turning it back on him.

Billy is too startled to react. He could bank on her passivity, he could set his watch by it. Now he is staring back at her pale eyes, lined with frustration. He blinks, and finds his smirk turning into a wide, smug grin. She is glaring at him, her nostrils flaring with each breath, her knuckles blanching white as she grips the gun. ’Cause,” Billy is almost laughing, “I got you.”

He is staring at a dark, black mark in the centre of Crisp’s forehead. She hasn’t blinked, and she reaches up with her free hand, pressing her finger into the centre of the mark and rubbing it, smearing the scorched dust across her skin. She pulls it away and looks down at the black smudge on her finger tip. The bullet hasn’t even pierced the skin. It sits crumpled at her feet.

“You know how to use that?” Billy asks. Crisp tears her eyes away from the dark mark on her finger, and she frowns.

“I don’t want to.” She states plainly, “I just wanted you to stop.” There is an uncharacteristic annoyance to her voice as the mist that occludes her blue eyes disappears, casting a bit more life onto her face. He has touched a nerve, he has somehow managed to stir up her memories so they’re sitting just beneath her skin, making it prickle with heat. He takes a step towards her, closing the distance so the muzzle of the gun presses into his chest.

“A bullet will do the job.” He growls, and he swipes the gun from her grasp. He keeps seeing little fragments of anger in her, hints of what he knows she is capable of, the reality of a decade of medicalised torture slowly coming to the surface. “You’re gonna have to be less trigger shy.”

The feeling that Crisp has in the pit of her stomach is visceral and distracting. She watches as he turns the gun back around on her, as if it matters. She shakes her head, “I don’t shoot people.”

“No, you just give them cancer.” Billy says, narrowing his eyes, “You want to take these fuckers down, then you’re gonna have to get your hands dirty.”

* * *

_Dr Vogelbaum is angry. His shoulders are tense, his hands clenched in front of him as he perches his elbows on the surface of the desk beneath him. Professor Dayton sits on the other side, her lips a thin line across her face._

_“She’s a fucking piece of work.” Dr Vogelbaum growls. The lights in his office are dim, casting shadows over the pair of them as the glow from his computer illuminates half of his face._

_“Christiane?” Professor Dayton raises her eyebrows. She has many phrases to describe the young woman, but that is not one of them, “I’m not sure I’d say that…”_

_“The risk that we took with this project and she undid it all, on a whim.” He murmurs._

_“We lied to her.” Professor Dayton says, and Dr Vogelbaum narrows his eyes and stares daggers at her. “She’s intelligent, we can’t just feed her an ill-prepared lie and expect her not to question it. We should have thought it through, we should have figured out something more… plausible.”_

_“You’d think from self-interest alone she’d be able to go along with it.” He grunts. Professor Dayton smiles, and shakes her head._

_“You really don’t know the girl.” She sighs, “She’s a dyed-in-the-wool idealist. She’s not Homelander, she’s not a cook-cutter solider you can just point and shoot.”_

_“Madelyn promised me we could make this work.” He says this through gritted teeth, leaning back in his chair, the joints creaking. “She said that she had worked out these problems, that she was ready. That we could actually use her now. If she keeps fucking…” He raises his hand, gesturing to the door, his mind on the man who had been pulled back from the brink of death, “fixing every fucker we put in front of her, we’re going to get nowhere.”_

_Professor Dayton shrugs. Weaponising Marburg is a project that makes her sick to her stomach, that leaves her with a constant gnawing guilt that wakes her up in a cold sweat at 2 am. The idea of getting nowhere, of Christiane obnoxiously blocking every attempt they make, is a small consolation. “It’s all she’s ever wanted to do.”_

_“What? Fuck with us?” Dr Vogelbaum snaps. She realises now the benefit of having spent years watching the young woman grow up, watching her being taught all of the weird and wonderful aspects of biology and medicine from Nicholas. Dr Vogelbaum has no point of reference outside of corporate interests and greed, whereas she knows Christiane. She knows where her values lie._

_“Fix things. She wants to help people.” Professor Dayton tilts her head to one side, her voice soft and defeated, “You won’t get her help developing biological weapons. She won’t help you if she believes she’ll be hurting people.”_

_Dr Vogelbaum lets out a laugh of frustration, “You’ve raised a fucking pacifist.”_

_“Why do you think she’s been stuck down here for so long? Vought has very little use for a supe that won’t throw a punch.”_

_“She’s a drain on resources Martha,” He points this out as if this is not an issue she is acutely aware of, “We have this person who can do… anything... with their body and they choose to do nothing. They could be the biggest name on this planet, and they don’t want anything to do with it. We can’t use that. How do we work with that?”_

_“Jonah, that is the exact question we’ve been trying to answer for… years…” Professor Dayton leans forward in her chair, as if crumpling beneath the weight of an insurmountable task._

_“So, what do we do?” Dr Vogelbaum asks._

_“We try something different.”_

_Dr Vogelbaum falls silent for a moment, losing himself in thought. “You’ve tried to harvest the virus, right?”_

_Professor Dayton nods slowly, “It kills anything we put it into,” She admits, “So far she is the only viable host we’ve found.”_

_Dr Vogelbaum nods, but it is clear this is not an answer he wants to hear. He frowns, and glances towards the screen of his computer, “She was isolated, right?”_

_“What do you mean?”_

_“Madelyn offered her up for this project because she claimed Christiane would behave herself. That she’d had a breakdown after she’d been in solitary isolation for years.”_

_Professor Dayton slowly nods. “Three years.”_

_“Why?” He asks. She frowns, not understanding, “You don’t put a resource like that on ice for three years for no reason.”_

_“She killed one of the doctors.” She clarifies. She watches a strange expression of realisation cross Dr Vogelbaum’s face, as if he has found the one clue that has been eluding him this entire time._

_“So, she will kill.”_

_“It was an accident.” She can still remember Christiane’s screams, she can remember the gangrenous oozing corpse of Dr Jones. She knows there was no intent behind it._

_“What made her do it?” He asks._

_“She was…” Professor Dayton’s voice shakes slightly, not wanting to remember back to that day. “She was trying to protect her pet cat.”_

_A smile starts to cross Dr Vogelbaum’s face, and she feels slightly unnerved by it. It is triumphant. “She murdered a man over a cat. A fucking **cat**. She’s not quite the pacifist she claims to be.”_

_“It really wasn’t deliberate Jonah, she was terrified when it happened.”_

_“I’m sure she was, but it still means she’s capable of murdering someone over a fucking cat, Martha.” He is grinning now, as if an entire world of opportunity has just opened up in front of him, “We just haven’t been motivating her right. If she’d do that for a cat, imagine what she’d do for another person.”_

* * *

“She’s not dead.” Madelyn’s words are defiant but filled with frustration. She stands in front of her desk with her arms folded across her chest, staring up at the cookie-cutter superhero silhouette of Homelander.

He throws his head back as he lets out a deep laugh, “She fell ten stories, Madelyn, she hardly got up and walked away.” Homelander shakes his head as he strides across the floor, crashing down onto one of the couches that sit in the centre of the room. “You should have seen her…” He shakes his head and stretches his arms out along the back of the couch, reclining and grinning like the hero he believes he is. “She was just so helpless and squirming and…” He reaches one arm out in front of him, pretending to grasp thin air, “and then she was just…” he opens his hand, “gone.”

“What part of ‘bring her back here’ did you not understand?” Madelyn hisses, struggling to maintain her composure, trying not to let her anger get the better of her.

“If she was as dangerous as you made out then this seemed like a much simpler option. Not that she seemed all that dangerous,” Homelander sighs, turning his head to look at her, “I mean, I did you a favour. You didn’t want her out there, walking the streets. She’s not walking anywhere ever again.”

“See the thing is…” Madelyn inhales sharply, hearing her heart pounding in her ears. She can picture it, Crisp peeling herself off the asphalt, hobbling away in front of crowds of onlookers, “She is.”

“Have you seen her?” Homelander spits this question out with disbelief. He doesn’t understand her insistence that this woman is some sort of existential threat. The way Christiane had been talked about was in such stark contrast to the woman he had pulled from the steaming wreck of the car. They had spoken about her like she was all powerful, as if she was unstoppable. What he had seen was a frightened girl, stuck in the middle of something she was not prepared for, “I threw her across the road and she got winded. She was like a fucking rag doll Madelyn. She was… soft and… weak. I mean frankly she was a disappointment.”

“Look, I appreciate what you tried to do -” Madelyn grits her teeth. The panic that is coursing through her body is barely controllable. She wants to scream at him, she wants to tell him that he is an arrogant little shit, she wants him to realise that he is not the centre of the universe, “But you really don’t understand what is at stake here.”

“She was pawing at me Madelyn. She was terrified.” Homelander raises his eyebrows, “It was pathetic.”

“She looks a lot more harmless than she actually is.”

“Butcher was there by the way.” He announces, as if this is a funny piece of trivia, a little nugget of gossip that Madelyn might find entertaining, “He shot at me, can you believe that? What an idiot.”

“So, not only did you leave her behind,” Madelyn says this slowly, clearly trying to process the information, trying to get a grasp of the situation without completely losing herself to panic, “but you’ve left her with Billy Butcher.”

“I left her crushed on the asphalt Madelyn, what part of this are you not getting?”

“The part where you ignored what I asked you to do.” She steps forward, perching herself on the edge of the cream sofa that sits opposite him, “You need to realise that sometimes I know best.”

“Oh, I know.” He says dismissively, “I just had a quicker way of handling it.”

Madelyn exhales slowly. She has kept things from him, the extent of his knowledge on the CRISPR project is limited to what she felt he could cope with, to snippets about Christiane’s potential to help them develop weapons, how that makes her dangerous, how she could push the boundaries for creating tailor-made supes. He has not seen the recordings of her pulling her skin back together after it was split open, of her arms breaking and bending back into shape. He has not seen the video of bubbling tumours ripple across a person’s skin moments after she loses her temper. Madelyn knows Homelander well enough to understand his ego is a delicate thing, and Christiane’s capabilities would threaten his sense of security. His ham-fisted attempt at murdering her makes that even clearer.

“You are aware that you also put the deputy director of the CIA in the hospital. On life support. Virtually brain dead.” Her voice is flat as she announces this. She had not anticipated such a blatant display of violence against a government agency, she had assumed naively that he would have been more tactful, more measured, that he wouldn’t have slaughtered intelligence agents in the middle of downtown Manhattan. She won’t make that mistake again.

“In the hospital?” Homelander raises his eyebrows and lets out a whistle, as if impressed, “I mean from the look of her I thought from she’d have been dead on arrival. Good for her, hanging on in there!”

“This isn’t a joke. We have the PR team scrambling to come up with some way to spin this where you don’t look like a psychotic asshole. We’re having to chase down everyone at that intersection and get our hands on any recordings we can find.” Madelyn’s jaw clenches, “The optics aren’t great.”

  
“I have every faith in your ability to spin a convincing story.” He leans forward on the sofa, examining the fear and stress on her face, “This isn’t the first time that you’ve had to clean up a bit of a mess, that’s why we have a PR team…”

Madelyn grits her teeth, “If she survives,” The weight of the hypothetical hangs heavy in the space between them, “There might be no coming back from this.”

“If she survives? You said it yourself, she’s virtually brain dead,” Homelander shakes his head, “If she survives, if she can get up and string a sentence together,” He smirks, “That would be a fucking miracle.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So sorry for the delay getting this pulled together. I've started a new job that has left me with virtually no time to write but am slowly chipping away when I get the chance!


	15. Supplication

_She couldn't care less, and I never cared more_   
_So there's no more to say about that_   
_Except hope is a dangerous thing for a woman like me to have_   
_Hope is a dangerous thing for a woman with my past_

* * *

Billy wakes up with his face pressed into the mattress, the smell of mildew hitting the back of his nose. He groans, feeling the stiffness at the base of his neck from where it has been bent at an awkward angle for hours. He rolls over onto his back, the rusted springs of the bed-frame squeaking beneath him as his weight shifts, and he finds himself staring up at a cracking ceiling, the once white tiles now yellow and discoloured from the passage of time. He never planned to be waking up in this room again, this small supply cupboard in an abandoned diner, but obsession has a way of dragging him back down to these filthy depths.

He pushes himself upright, running a hand through his hair as he tries to shake the sleep from his head. The past week has been nothing but adrenaline and anger, and his body is adjusting, sacrificing his ability to sleep, his brain chasing him with dreams of bones cracking under his hands and the scent of smoke. He rises from the bed, the floor cold on the soles of his bare feet, and he shuffles towards this doorway.

The first thing he notices is the pool of blood is gone, the linoleum has a noticeable sheen where it had once been red. He takes a few cautious steps forward, his skin prickling across his bare torso in the cool morning air. He is unsure of the time, but there is a faint orange glow seeping in between the slats of blinds.

He hears the sound of layers of fabric moving against each other, a quiet rustle, and he picks his head up to glance over to the sofa. He slowly and quietly walks over, the figure of Crisp coming into view. She is curled up in a foetal position on the cushions, her figure hidden beneath an expanse of dark material. As she comes into focus Billy realises she has pulled his duster over her as a blanket, her face buried in its lapel.

He feels his heart sink as he watches her, the infrequent shallow breaths making her shoulders rise, her white hair, spilled out over the arm of the sofa, like spools of silver thread. Her face is blank, relaxed, completely oblivious to the world around her, to the situation she is in. He knows that the sinking feeling he has in his stomach is some residual memory of what guilt should feel like.

He tears his gaze away from her and trudges to another door set into the wall, stepping through into a wide tiled bathroom, stalls to his left, a few urinals screwed into the wall, sinks set out beneath mirrors with translucent stains and smears across their reflective surface. As he steps towards them he glances to the large trash sitting next to the row of sinks. From where he is standing he can see the paper towels stained deep red, evidence of yesterday’s target practice.

He leans over a sink, hunching his shoulders and turning the faucet, hearing the clanging within the pipes as water is slowly reintroduced, pouring into the grubby porcelain beneath him. He reaches down and collects a palmful of water, throwing it up into his face and rubbing into his skin, washing his tiredness away.

He glances up into the mirror to his distorted reflection, his eyes dark, his face lined with the stress collected over years. He clenches his jaw and his eyes wander down to his bare chest, to the patch of skin that had been torn open by the bullet barely days ago. He had felt his blood leave his body, he had felt himself die, and yet he didn’t even have a scar to show for it. His hand almost instinctively wanders over to the spot, pressing down, as if reminding himself he is intact, that he is still breathing.

She fixed him. She put the pieces of him back together. And he knows it was for nothing, it didn’t make the slightest bit of difference. He knows he is just going to burn right through her anyway.

* * *

Crisp wakes to the sound of a door slamming, and the fear that shoots through her veins is immediate and intense. She pushes herself up from where she has been curled around the folds of Billy’s duster, springing to her feet, her eyes open wide, orienting to the noise.

“Mornin’ darlin’” She hears his gruff voice cut through the adrenaline haze and she blinks, watching him stride across the room, coming to a stop next to the large table in the centre of the room, nursing a paper cup in his hand. He raises it, motioning to the sofa she has just sprang up from, “Sleep well?”

She frowns, confused and disorientated, and her eyes dart to where she had heard the door slam. They settle on three figures that are illuminated by the soft glow of the morning sun that pours through the cracks in the blinds. Their faces come into focus and she feels the panic start to dissipate rapidly.

“The band's back together.” Billy announces, motioning towards Hughie, Marvin and Frenchie who hover near the entryway, “And the fuckers brought coffee.”

“What’s happened?” Crisp can see the concern painted on the three men’s faces, their discomfort is obvious.

“We were going to ask you that.” Frenchie counters. 

Marvin glares in the direction of Billy, turning and striding towards him, “Last we heard the spooks were gearing up for a raid on Vought, next thing we know we’re out, nobody will talk about your girl here, and Rayner’s in the fucking hospital.”

“Is she okay?” Crisp’s voice chirps through the tension of the room, her eyebrows raised expectantly. Marvin glances over at her, seeing the strange hopeful expression on her face, and he shakes his head slowly.

“No, she’s not.”

Billy watches as Crisp’s expression crumbles into one of guilt, and he clears his throat, “You three missed a lot.” He states, wanting to change the focus, “A lot of shit went down while you were all putting your feet up in quarantine. But we gotta keep our eyes on the prize.” Billy raises the cup of coffee to his mouth and drains it, crumpling the paper in his hand and tossing it onto the table in the centre of the room.

“What’s the prize?” Hughie asks.

“Wait a minute -” Frenchie interrupts, his voice rising with exasperation, raising his hands, “What’s with the girl?” He motions in Crisp’s direction. The last they had heard she could be harbouring a deadly infectious disease, she could be patient zero for the next pandemic, “Is she dangerous?”

Crisp instinctively looks towards Billy, and he raises his head, letting out a deep sigh before glancing over at her and meeting her eyes. These three men had been cushioned from the steep learning curve that they had gone through together. He slowly shakes his head.

“She’s safe.” He chooses the words carefully, before looking back at Frenchie, “She’s with us.” He says this decisively, no room for negotiation. She watches the three men frown, glancing uncertainly at each other. They know the last person Billy Butcher would be opening his arms for would be a Supe, but this sudden turnaround in the space of a handful of days is suspicious.

“Comme tu veux.” Frenchies mutters.

“So, what’s the deal,” Marvin mutters, he has spotted the disturbed dust on the table, the papers pushed around and bundled into different piles, “Why have we landed back in this shit hole with no back up plan?”

“Supes, it’s always fuckin’ supes.” Billy snarls.

“Homelander.” Crisp pipes up, her voice is small but there is a cautious confidence to it. She clears her throat and steps towards the large table in the centre of the room, “Susan was taking me into the city and he … dropped out of the sky, out of nowhere.”

“Homelander.” Marvin looks at her, his eyebrows raised. She nods and watches as he shakes his head, “Fuckin’ perfect.”

“He flattened an SUV full of agents and almost killed Rayner.” Billy clarifies.

“Why would he do that?” Hughie chirps in, approaching the group as they congregate around the table, their fingers leaving imprints in the dust as they lean on the wooden surface.

“Why’d you think?” Marvin interjects, before gesturing in the direction of Crisp. She inhales sharply, trying to remember what Billy had told her, trying to remember it was not her fault. “He’s after Casper the friendly ghost over here”

Crisp can see Billy crack a smile in her periphery, “You ain’t wrong.”

“Why do you want us to haul her around with us when she’s painting a big fucking target on our back?” Marvin snaps.

“Cause she’s more than a target lads.” Billy states simply, “She’s the key to this fuckin’ thing. She’s the reason we’re gonna be able to bring Vought to their knees.”

Marvin, Frenchie and Hughie slowly turn their heads to look sceptically over at Crisp. She shrugs suddenly feeling self-aware, “Well…” She sighs, “I'm happy to help.”

“Kid’s being modest.” Billy says dismissively, “Homelander dropped her ten stories and she didn’t even graze a knee - he won’t know what’s hit him after she’s done.” Crisp purses her lips into a thin line, uncomfortable with how she is being painted. She doesn’t not know the immediate plan, she doubts very much that Billy actually has one, but the reliance of her as a weapon goes hard against her grain.

“You just really strong or…?” Hughie starts questioning, not understanding the context, not understanding why one minute she is an existential threat to humanity and now she’s the answer to their prayers. Crisp shakes her head, frowning.

“No, not really, it’s not like that.” She isn’t used to describing the thing that is living inside her, the sensation when she slides into the depths of her midbrain and feels the electricity passing between her cells, “I’m hard to kill.” She clarifies.

“She’s a walking, talking medical experiment. Vought dropped the fuckin’ ball with this one.” Billy reaches over to the dusty pile of paper on the table spreading them out in front of him, the small specks of dust glimmering in the sunshine as they shake loose, “But we know she can put an end to fuckin’ Homelander. Their loss is our gain. We just need to get her close enough.”

“How?” Marvin spits out, his disbelief grounded in palpable fear. “Just ‘cause she can be dropped on her ass doesn’t mean that’ll do us any good. The fuckers bullet proof.”

Billy’s mouth twists into a tight, smug smirk, “That makes two of ‘em” He straightens up, “Look, if she wanted to flex she could, but you piss her off one of you is getting cancer.”

“What?” Hughie’s voice rises an octave along with his eyebrows.

“Hey!” Crisp hisses, narrowing her eyes at him, stepping forward. She knows these men are on edge, that the last they had heard her mere presence put their lives at risk. Unlike Billy she isn’t about to revel in their discomfort, “You’re all going to be okay.” She states firmly, “And we have bigger problems right now than chasing your vendetta.” She glares in Billy’s direction.

“Like what?” Hughie asks, his voice small and uncertain. Billy’s skin tightens around his eyes as they bore a hole through Crisp, as if trying to warn her that she is overstepping.

“The biological weapons Vought’s got an entire R&D team dedicated to developing.” She says this decisively, her gaze never leaving Billy. She watches him almost flinch as the bomb drops, aware that these men are not about to chase after Homelander with the threat of biological weapons looming over them.

“Quelle?” Frenchie hisses as Marvin’s jaw drop open.

“I thought you just said- “ He starts, pointing accusingly at Crisp.

“You had the basic information, just… incorrectly applied.” Crisp says with a sigh, “They were trying to get me to weaponise some nasty viruses under the guise of a vaccine programme. They never told me that that was what they were doing, but it turns out it was their plan all along. I didn’t realise, I’m sorry.”

The fear on their faces is pure, and she watches as Hughie’s face twists in confusion, “What do you mean they were trying to use you…” He mumbles.

“They were trying to get me to change the genome of pathogens, change how they were transmitted.”

Hughie’s face is tight for a moment more, before his features soften and his eyes widen with realisation. He shakes his head in disbelief, “Like… gene editing?”

“Another party trick of hers.” Billy growls, folding his arms across his chest. “The shit this girl can do with her hands.”

Crisp nods slowly, “Basically, yeah. That’s apparently what they were trying to use me for.” She watches as a look of amazement comes over Hughie's face.

“That’s…” He shakes his head again, “wow!”

“Wait, let me get this straight, you developed biological weapons for them?” Marvin asks this through a clenched jaw and clamped teeth. Crisp hastily shakes her head.

“No, I didn’t do what they asked, it made no sense-”

“So, no weapons! We’re okay!” Billy cuts through her, hunching back over the table, “We can get back to figuring out how to shoot this fucker out of the sky.”

“Not really,” Crisp interjects. She can see the muscles on Billy’s back tense beneath the material of his shirt.

“Crispy, we got bigger fuckin’ fish to fry .” There is a sharpness to his voice.

“They’ve still got a whole stockpile of dangerous diseases.” Her voice is flat in a way that is deliberate, that is calm and measured. The three other men watch the bizarre dynamic play out in front of them. They watch as Billy’s face twists in anger, his hands curling into fists against the surface of the table, his knuckles blanching.

“So does the CDC.” He growls, “Don’t see you wanting to go kick their doors down.”

“If I thought they would infect civilians with smallpox, then I might.” She counters, “Even though I didn’t help them create superbugs, that doesn’t really matter. Disease weaponises itself.”

Marvin steps forward towards Billy, “I know you got a hard on about Homelander, but we can’t just pretend this isn’t a big fucking problem.” He raises his hand as if it will somehow calm down the rising, bubbling frustration that is obvious across Billy’s shoulders.

Billy pushes himself up from the table, taking a step backwards, his eyes dark, glowering at the four people in front of him, his nostrils flaring as his chest rises and falls with each breath. He narrows his eyes as they lock with Crisp, before shrugging.

“Fine,” He spits out, the word dripping with disdain “Save the fuckin’ world.”

* * *

Crisp stands in the door way, her hand cautiously hovering over the frame, uncertain of her place in the world. The room is small, she is almost certain it was once a utility closet, but now there is a black wire framed bed squeezed into the cramped space, complete with a thin mattress as if that somehow makes the setting more comfortable.

“What do you want?” Billy growls. He is perched on the edge of the bed, his shoulders rounded as he hunches over the gun in his hand. He is dismantling it, the metal pieces coming apart, losing all of their menace. The room stinks of whatever solvent he is using to clean the barrel.

Billy had disappeared into this room in the back of the decaying diner hours ago. Marvin, Hughie and Frenchie had spent the day quizzing her about what she knew, where she had been held, how Vought had found her, how Vought had lost her, how she would be able to get them through the doors when the time came. The entire time Billy’s absence had been palpable, a deliberate statement, reminding them all just how single minded he truly was.

“Wanted to see if you were okay.” She says quietly. He doesn’t look up.

“Fuck off.”

“Still sulking then.” She sighs.

“I’ll fucking shoot you again.” He spits the threat out as his head snaps up. She smirks.

“Feel free.” She tells him with a shrug, stepping into the room.

Crisp puts her back against the wall that is facing him, and slowly she lowers herself to the ground. She folds her legs beneath her, as if she is making herself comfortable, as if the cold linoleum that spans every inch of the place isn’t just as hard as the concrete beneath it.

She looks up at him, with the same stupid wide-eyed look that gets right under his skin, that makes him feel as if she can see right through him. “This isn’t mutually exclusive, you get that, right?

“Crispy, if you start talkin’ in fuckin’ riddles…” Billy groans.

“If we go after that stockpile of theirs, who do you think they’re going to send to stop us?” She asks, raising her eyebrows, as if it is the most obvious thing in the world, “Homelander.”

Billy glares down at her, and slowly exhales before tossing the dismantled pieces of his gun to one side.

“My guess is he’s not the most accessible guy,” She continues, “It’s not like we can just ring up and ask for an appointment with him. They sent him after me for just… existing outside of the walls of Vought. They’ll send him again if they think I’m actually going after them.”

“So, you just want to walk through the doors, you want to go right back to them.”

Crisp feels all of the muscles in her back tense, and she hesitates, “No.” She sighs, “Of course I don’t. I want to be as far away from Vought as I can possibly get. But I can’t leave things this way.”

Billy sees the determination in her eyes, mixed with the tell-tale tension of fear. She is frightened, but she is also right. Homelander had tracked her down in record time, waltzing straight into a Vought building would be handing her right back to him. He would be there; the narcissist wouldn’t be able to help himself.

“You know where they got the shit stored then?” He sighs, and Crisp can feel a swell of relief rise in her chest. 

“No.” She states plainly, and Billy rolls his eyes.

“We just gonna go knock on doors? Anyone seen some spare fuckin’ smallpox lying about?” He spits out sarcastically. Crisp shakes her head.

“Susan knows where they’re storing everything. She was working on a warrant.” Crisp says this with unearned confidence, as if it is an answer.

“Susan can’t even fuckin’ breathe for herself.” Billy growls.

The statement hangs in the air, and he watches as Crisp raises her eyebrows, as if waiting for the penny to drop. Billy feels an undeserved sense of anger tug at him as he stares in her wide, blue eyes, and he shakes his head decisively. “You’re fuckin’ taking the piss now.”

“What do you mean -” She starts, and Billy cuts her off, not willing to play into her naivety. He rises suddenly to his feet so he is glaring down his nose at her.

“I mean you ain’t gonna start with the fuckin’ layin’ on of hands!”

Crisp stares up at him, the light striking him from behind leaving only an outline of his dark silhouette lording over her. She has poked a sore spot, and it has left him reactive and vicious. She does not understand it, she does not understand his aversion to the simple act of helping someone else. She slowly inhales and presses her palms down into the linoleum, pushing herself to her feet so she can stand upright. She doesn’t measure up, but it makes her feel like less of a child.

“She is the only person that definitely knows where Vought has this stuff tucked away.” Billy almost flinches at the tone of her voice, there is no rise or pitch, no defensive edge to it. It is muted and calm. “She is seriously hurt and might not survive her injuries. I can help. I don’t see why that is a problem.”

Billy hesitates, “It’s a problem because there is a fuckin’ target on your back. On our backs.” He points out, “You think it’s gonna help if you start fuckin’ raising people from the dead?”

Crisp narrows her eyes slightly, and there is a challenge in the way the tension moves across her face, “You got a better idea?”

* * *

_“Wake up.” The voice is muffled, lacking clarity, but it is loud enough to rouse her from her sleep. She blinks as the lights overhead come on, and winces beneath their brightness. She rolls over on the bare mattress she lying atop of, her narrow eyes searching through the whiteness of the room to see a figure standing in the open doorway._

_“What’s going on?” She mumbles, raising her hand to block out the direct light. She can see the outline of the usual hazmat suit, followed by the motion of two other figures entering the room. She pushes herself upright, and as her vision focuses she can make out the eyes of Dr Vogelbaum behind the transparent plastic._

_“I’ve got something to show you.” He grunts, stepping out of the room as the two other figures approach her, hooking her beneath her elbows without saying a word and pulling her to her feet. She is confused, and she pulls at their grip momentarily, a sinking sense of fear developing in her chest._

_“Where are you taking me?” She asks in a panicked gasp as they pull her forward. She attempts to resist by digging the heels of her bare feet into the tiled floor, but her skin just slides over the smooth surface. She is greeted by silence, the ventilators of the suits obscuring any recognisable features of their face._

_She is led out of her room and into the corridor. She twists in the grip of these people, their rubber clad hands biting into the skin of her arms, and it is a futile gesture. She is frightened, and as she is trailed through the building, still unable to differentiate different corridors, different rooms, the fear reaches her throat and makes her feel as if she is suffocating._

_There is an open door up ahead, and there is something about the pale blue glow emanating from within that adds to the dread. The two men drag her inside, her eyes wide as they slam the door shut behind them._

_“Christiane.” Dr Vogelbaum is standing a few feet away, waiting for her. He says her name in a disappointed sigh, and turns to face her. The room is illuminated by a pale blue glow from the fluorescents above them, the floor dips under her feet at a slight angle and in the centre of the room is a single metal drain in the floor. “This didn’t have to happen.”_

_“What?” She asks, her voice a coarse whisper, the volume dampened by her fear. Dr Vogelbaum reaches up and removes his mask, exhaling slowly and turning his head towards the wall that is on the opposite side of the room._

_On the wall is another door, and it swings open, revealing a man wearing a uniform that is similar to a soldier, dark and structured, with his hand on the shoulder of another man, leading him inside. This other man has a black bag over his head, his wrists bound in front of him with zip ties. He is dressed just like her, a pair of stark white scrubs and bare feet that struggle to grip the floor._

_Chris can feel her heart pounding in her chest as she watches the soldier press down harshly on this man’s shoulder, forcing his legs to buckle and he collapses onto his knees. “I don’t understand…” She starts, unsure of who this is, of why he is here, of why she is here, of their significance to each other. And then she hears it, a faint voice coming from beneath the black hood._

_“Rabbighfir li.” The voice is wavering with fear, but Chris immediately recognises it and a sense of panic takes hold._

_“No.” She whispers, her eyes widening and darting towards Dr Vogelbaum._

_“Yes.” He says “I need to make it clear that you are here to do what we say. You will get to save people one day, you will get to be the hero, but on our terms. You’re not a hero yet. Not now.”_

_Crisp feels tears start to prick at the corner of her eyes as the soldier reaches forward and pulls the hood off the man. Beneath is the bearded, terrified face of the man whose hand she had held, who was ravaged by a deadly virus, who she had pulled back from the brink of death. His eyes are directed upwards, and he is repeating words in a hushed voice and in a language, she cannot understand._

_It happens quickly and seamlessly; the soldier reaches his free hand to his belt and retrieves a hand gun. He presses the barrel into the back of the man’s head at an angle, flush with his scalp. There is an unceremonious pop, and suddenly the man drops. His body weight pulls him forward as his torso hits the tiles with a dull thud._

_Chris’ eyes widen, and she opens her mouth as if to say something, as if to scream, but no sound comes out. She has learned the uselessness of words, the pointlessness of noise. Instead she holds her breath as she watches the blood pool beneath this man’s face, collecting in his dark hair. It is pouring from his mouth, from his nose, a steady stream that moves towards the drain in the centre of the room. His eyes are still open, they are fixed in the same position but there is no glimmer in them, no hint that there is anyone behind them_

_She releases air from her lungs, and she feels her own knees give out as gravity pulls her to join him on the floor. She slumps down as the two anonymous people next to her attempt to hold her upright, and she hangs from their grip like a puppet whose strings have been cut._

_“You don’t get to decide who lives or dies.” Dr Vogelbaum’s voice cuts into her consciousness, but her gaze doesn’t move from the glassy stare of the dead man across the room. “We do.”_

* * *

“This ain’t gonna work.”

“It’ll work, just give it a chance.” Hughie interjects as he adjusts the coat that has been pulled around Billy’s shoulders. They stand in an alleyway, next to the open doors at the back of their van, surrounded by high buildings and the bustling sound of the street a few feet away. The coat that Billy has on is bright white, and it stands out starkly against his unkempt hair and dark beard.

“I look fuckin’ weird.”

“You do.” Crisp’s voice chips in in agreement. She sits perched on the edge of the open van, her eyes trained on the dark tommy Bahama shirt that Billy has tucked under the lab coat. She is dressed in a white and blue polka dot hospital gown that swamps her, the pair of white sneakers on her feet clashing with the clinical robe.

“We got scrubs –“ Hughie starts as he takes a step back to take in the impact of the lab coat on Billy’s shoulders.

“I ain’t puttin’ on fuckin’ scrubs.” Billy growls, “It’s like walkin’ round in fuckin’ pyjamas.”

Crisp shrugs and lets out a sigh, her eyes darting to her right as Frenchie appears from behind the van door, pushing a squeaking wheelchair into view. “Your ride awaits, madame.” He says with a smile, motioning to seat in front of him.

“Merci.” Crisp pushes herself up from the edge of the van and steps towards the wheelchair.

“You guys know this doesn’t count as a disguise, right?” Marvin leans against one of the walls, his arms folded across his chest, staring at them in disbelief. “They’re gonna be lookin for her and she might as well have a fuckin’ flashing neon sign over her head.”

“I’ll make it work.” Crisp says dismissively as she turns and sits herself down on the seat. She kicks down the foot rests and plants her feet flat on their flat surface. Billy is no longer paying attention, instead he marches over to the open van and is stuffing a stethoscope into his pocket, a prop that is meant to detract from the obvious incongruity of what he is wearing.

“You stand out. Ain’t no gettin’ round that.” Marvin points out, “Vought will have eyes all over this buildin’, you’ll get picked up the moment you step inside.”

Crisp leans back in the wheelchair and stares defiantly at Marvin. He watches as her eyes cloud over, a translucent white mist covering her pupil. He pushes himself up off the wall, his brow creasing in confusion.

It happens slowly at first, like leaves falling from the trees at the first hint of autumn. Small, individual white hairs tumble from her eyebrows, gently detaching from her skin and dropping onto the rise of her cheekbone, onto the material of her hospital gown. She blinks, and the movement causes gravity to win the battle with her eyelashes, and they float onto her lap.

She raises her hand and runs it gently through the long white hair on her hand, and Marvin’s eyes widen as he watches it come away at the root, multiple strands collecting in the gaps between her fingers. She repeats the movement with her other hand, not reacting to the pile of hair collecting in her lap, continuing until all of her hair is gone. She stares back at them and blinks slowly until the colour is restored to her eyes.

“That better?” She asks, her entire face looking smooth and seamless, with nothing interrupting the landscape of her skin. Marvin opens his mouth to reply.

“Jesus fuckin’ Christ.” Billy interrupts, having turned around to find Crisp sitting there, completely bald with a pile of hair on her lap, “You look fuckin’ awful!”

“Tu ressembles à la mort.” Frenchie mumbles under his breath, taking a step back from the wheelchair, narrowing his eyes as he examines Crisp’s new look.

“Doesn’t… really draw **_less_** attention to you.” Hughie clears his throat and directs his eyes towards the ground.

“We're going into a hospital. People generally don’t like staring at someone who is obviously sick.” Crisp points out, brushing the hair off her lap, the long silver strands tumbling onto the concrete. Billy smirks, striding over to her and raising a hand, rubbing her now completely bald head.

“Maybe you’ll bring us a lil’ bit of luck, eh?” He quips, before slapping the top of her head and turning to Marvin, opening his arms as if to show off the lab coat on his shoulders. “Come on, we look the part now.”

“I still think you should wear the fuckin’ scrubs.” Marvin growls, before stepping over to the van and slamming the doors shut.

Hughie steps over to the wheelchair, gripping the handles and giving it a gentle push towards the end of the alley way. Crisp lets out a sigh and leans back again, trying to adjust to the feeling of being wheeled around. Something about it reminds her of the countless times she was escorted through the corridors at Vought, unable to control where she ended up.

Billy steps forward to follow them, but feels a hand suddenly grip his upper arm. He hesitates, swinging around to see Marvin just behind him, a look of concern on his face. Billy rolls his eyes, “Every cunt in that place will be too busy lookin’ at her bald fuckin’ head to care what I’m fuckin’ wearin’.” He growls.

Marvin shakes his head, and Billy can see Frenchie hanging behind a few feet back, a similar expression of concern on his face, “Butcher, what the fuck happened?” His voice is low and cautious.

“What you talkin’ ‘bout?” Billy mumbles gruffly, shaking his arm out of Marvin’s grip.

“I’m talkin’ about her.” Marvin hisses, nodding in the direction of Crisp who has been rolled out of ear-shot, “If you say she’s safe, I believe you. But you – Billy fuckin’ Butcher - are runnin’ after a supe. And I know you must have a pretty damn good reason why.”

Billy feels a heat rise under his collar and his jaw clenches, “She can put an end Homelander, ain’t that a good enough reason?”

He watches as Marvin’s face changes, softening at the edges. Marvin takes a step back, raising his hands. “I didn’t mean nothin’ by it, man.” Marvin clarified, “I just wanted to make sure we aren’t missing anything here.”

Billy takes a step backwards towards the end of the alley where Crisp and Hughie are lingering, waiting on him, “You ain’t missing anything,” Billy grunts, “She’s a means to an end.”


End file.
